Welcome to the Golden Dozen, and our 503rd 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 (14 – 20 January, 2018), 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. Liberal Democrats hold Council seat with 77% of the vote by Mark Pack on Mark Pack .
Good news of a very solid hold.

2. Conservatives lose overall control of council following defection of two councillors by Mark Pack on Mark Pack.
All is not well in the Lewes Conservative party.

3. Why hasn’t another MP been called into Sheffield Hallam? by Mark Pack on Mark Pack.
Surel someone should be covering the casework.

4. MEP takes the exit door from UKIP by Jonathan Wallace on Jonathan Wallace.
UKIP is another MEP down.

5. Whittlesea station: Alight for the straw bear by Jonathan Calder on Liberal England.
A detour from the Straw Bear Festival.

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. Rape culture, autism, ableism, body language and consent by Andrew Hickey on Head of State .
A thoughtful response to the “but some people can’t read body language and rape people by accident” argument.

7. FCC tomorrow: Here’s a sneak preview by Jennie Rigg on  Ten KitKats and a Motoring Atlas
I love Jennie’s system for categorising Conference motions.

8.  Let’s talk about Asian Feminism by Jane Chelliah on Feminist Mama .
Insights and resources into Asian feminism.

9. My strange visit to Trump Tower by Maelo Manning on Lib Dem Child aged 18.
Signs of a divided nation. Some people love this guy.

10. PAYE employees are the punchbags of capitalism by Jane Chelliah on Feminist Mama.
Shareholders need to take responsibility.

11. Liverpool’s squalid prison by Peter Wrigley on Keynesian Liberal.
A must read on the awful conditions in Liverpool and beyond.

12. I had a stroke – Part 1 I had a stroke and it could have been the worst of times but it wan’t thanks to our NHS by Andy Boddington on Andy Boddington.
Get well soon, Andy! Read his account of what happened to him and the care he received.

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

Featured? Add this to your blog post!

<a href="https://www.libdemvoice.org/top-of-the-blogs-the-lib-dem-golden-dozen-503-56431.html"><img src="https://www.libdemvoice.org/images/golden-dozen.png" width="200" height="57" alt="Featured on Liberal Democrat Voice" title="Featured on Liberal Democrat Voice" /></a>

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