Welcome to the Golden Dozen, and our 498th weekly round-up from the Lib Dem blogosphere … Featuring the five most popular stories beyond Lib Dem Voice according to click-throughs from the Aggregator (3-9 December, 2017), together with a hand-picked seven you might otherwise have missed.

Don’t forget: you can sign up to receive the Golden Dozen direct to your email inbox — just click here — ensuring you never miss out on the best of Lib Dem blogging.

As ever, let’s start with the most popular post, and work our way down:

1. Brexit voter tells Nigel Farage “I’d now vote Remain” by Mark Pack on Mark Pack.
The tide appears to be turning.

2. Liberal Democrats gain seat from Conservatives in Devon by-election by Mark Pack on Mark Pack.
More good news – but we didn’t stand a candidate in the other seat up for grabs.

3. Lib Dem gain costs Tories control of North Devon Council by Jonathan Calder on Liberal England.
More on the implications of that by-election win.

4. Yesterday was a national embarrassment of epic proportions so why is the coverage of it so muted? by Nick Tyrone on NickTyrone.com.
Surely they can’t  have felt sorry for the PM?

5. Brexit: Britain will end up in the customs union by Matthew Green on Thinking Liberal.
Let’s hope his crystal ball isn’t broken.

And now to the seven blog-posts that come highly recommended, regardless of the number of Aggregator click-throughs they attracted. To nominate a Lib Dem blog article published in the past seven days – your own, or someone else’s, all you have to do is drop a line to [email protected]. You can also contact us via Twitter, where we’re @libdemvoice

6. This week’s Friday Five is political so...by Jennie Rigg on There is no tinsel, only Zuul .
But what you actually need to read are her hilarious Fanny Craddock posts.  Guess what I’m going to be doing when I’ve finished putting this together.

7. No island is an island entirely unto itself  by Cicero on Cicero’s Songs.
” unless we punish the guilty at the next election we will continue be complicit in our own decline.”

8. What do women want jokes are a load of rubbish by Jane Chelliah on Feminist Mama.
A double dose of misogyny

9. Things Tim Farron doesn’t understand: Atheism  by Nick Barlow  on What you can get away with .
Tim says that atheists have no common values. Nick disagrees very eloquently.

10. The impossible conundrum of Brexit by Peter Black on Peter Black.
Peter argues that the only way to take back control is to stop Brexit.

11. Diary Day 442: Negotiating the unnegotiable. Courage by Josephine Hayes on Josephine Hayes
An encounter with the leader of the Russian liberal party Yabloko.

12. Policy for an alternative future by Alex Marsh on Alex’s Archives.
We have always had the power to change the things the populists stir up discontent about. We need to set out that vision.

And that’s it for another week. Happy blogging ‘n’ reading ‘n’ nominating.

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* Caron Lindsay is Editor of Liberal Democrat Voice and blogs at Caron's Musings. You can find her on Bluesky at caronmlindsay.bsky.social