Welcome to the Golden Dozen, and our 499th 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 (10-16 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. Final council by-elections of 2017:  Lib Dems make pair of successful defences by Mark Pack on Mark Pack.
A solid end to a successful run of by-elections these past few months.

2. Labour administration ousted in fallout from election blunders by Mark Pack on Mark Pack.
In Newcastle-under-Lyme there were all sorts of problems with the running of the election.

3. Conservatives lose another seat to the Lib Dems – this time on a 22% swing by Mark Pack on Mark Pack.
Wednesday by-election success.

4. Fury at council severe weather policy that shuts the doors at 9 pm and denies access by Iain Brodie Browne on Birkdale Focus.
Rough sleepers have to be booked in by 9pm.

5. YES! Theresa May defeated 309-305 over Brexit in Parliament by Mark Pack on Mark Pack.
They can be beaten after all.

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. A tale of two podcasts @limehousepod and @liberatedpod by Jennie Rigg on There is no tinsel, only Zuul.
Jennie reviews two recent additions to the Lib Dem podcast scene.

7. My less than six degrees of separation from Max Clifford by Jane Chelliah on Feminist Mama.
Jane tells us about her encounters with the disgraced Mr Clifford.

8. The American national nightmare by Cicero on Cicero’s Songs.
The US is in deep trouble.

9. My 2017 in 775 words by Andrew Brown on The Widow’s World.
Andrew looks back on this year in personal, professional and political terms.

10. Tidings of (modified) joy by Peter Wrigley on Keynesian Liberal.
What would the right wing press have said if a left wing government had done the things the Tories have done?

11. Diary Day 450: the key question is how much worse the UK will be post Brexit by Josephine Hayes on Josephine Hayes.
There is no good outcome to this madness.

12. Brexit: Parliament sticks it to the (wo)man by Mark Valladares  on Liberal Bureaucracy .
The Brexiteers’ belief in sovereignty only seems to apply to people who agree with them.

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

The eagle eyed will have noticed that we are on Golden Dozen 499. After a break for Christmas, the final one of the year will be 500, appearing on Hogmanay. How good was that planning?

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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