Top of the Blogs: The Lib Dem Golden Dozen #505

Welcome to the Golden Dozen, and our 505th 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 (28 January – 3 February, 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. Another gain from Labour in Sunderland by Jonathan Wallace on Jonathan Wallace.
Details from the campaign trail itself.

2. The bad news for remainers in the latest Guardian poll on Brexit by Mark Pack on Mark Pack.
It only showed the slimmest of majorities for remaining  in the EU. There is more work to do.

3. Lib Dems gain seat from Labour from 4th place with 33% swing by Mark Pack on Mark Pack.
That excellent Pallion ward by-election again.

4. New light on the suspension of two Lib Dem members of York City Council’s executive? by Jonathan Calder  on Liberal England.
Maybe a change in the leadership of the Conservative group will make a difference.

5. If Tory backbenchers pull the plug on May, who will become Prime Minister? A journey into the bizarre by Nick Tyrone on NickTyrone.com.
It could be a wacky race if it happens.

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. How the motions got selected for Southport Conference in excruciating detail by Jennie Rigg on Ten KitKats and a Motoring Atlas .
In a party of geeks, this will go down very well. An insight into the decision making process.

7.  Young girl, Ahed Tamimi, spends 17th birthday in an Israeli jail by Maelo Manning on .Libdemchild aged 18.
Whatever your stance on Israel/Palestine, says Maelo, surely imprisoning and shooting children is going too far.

8. Suicide, the DUP and me by Stephen Glenn on Stephen’s Liberal Journal .
Stephen highlights the damage and long term harm that prejudice can cause.

9. How to come back to a racist by Jane Chelliah on Feminist Mama.
Four suggestions.

10. The unexpected return of fairies by David Boyle on The Real Blog.
Well, it’s a break from Brexit, Trump and Google.

11. Grilling Vince Cable by Jonathan Fryer on Jonathan Fryer.
Not literally…

12. Britain’s regional policy needs more government by Matthew Green on Thinking Liberal.
Countries which devolve power also have wider prosperity. .

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

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One Comment

  • Catherine Jane Crosland 5th Feb '18 - 8:54am

    I would especially recommend Jennie Rigg’s blog post about how the motions were selected for Spring Conference. Jennie says in the title that she goes into “excruciating detail”, but actually I would have liked a good deal more detail! I guess I am a geek!
    Jennie has done a great deal to make the process of choosing motions more transparent, but nevertheless there are evidently some things she is not allowed to say, and things she is too tactful to say. But surely there should be total transparency in this process, with detailed minutes being available to members?
    Some of the things that Jennie does reveal, give cause for concern. It seems that some motions were rejected at a very early stage, without any lengthy discussion, because of what Jennie refers to as the “snowball test” – if a motion is felt not to have a snowball’s chance in…of being selected. But as it is FCC that makes the decisions, the snowball test is surely just self fulfilling, and surely every motion deserves to be properly discussed?
    It is especially disappointing to learn that the motion about supporting the UN Treaty banning nuclear weapons, was considered to fail the snowball test, and therefore was not seriously considered. I believe that the official reason given for rejecting this motion, was that nuclear weapons had been debated by conference recently. It is true that there was a debate on nuclear weapons at Spring Conference 2017. But this is not a valid reason for rejecting this motion, for the specific issue of the UN Treaty has never been debated by conference.
    The preamble to the Lib Dem Constitution says that we must work with international organisations to achieve peace and disarmament. So it surely follows that we should, and must, support the UN Treaty, and it is hard to think of a more important subject for conference to debate.
    The apparent “rule” about not debating an issue that has been debated recently is, anyway, not consistently enforced. There is to be a debate about Brexit, despite the fact that there were debates about the EU and Brexit at Autumn Conference 2016, Spring Conference 2017, and Autumn Conference 2017.

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