Top of the Blogs: The Lib Dem Golden Dozen #535

Welcome to the Golden Dozen, and our 535th 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 (11-17 November, 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. Janna Hanna wins Oxfordshire by-election for the Lib Dems by Mark Pack on Mark Pack.
A strong hold.

2. Open letter to the Chief Whip of the Lib Dems about the behaviour of Stephen Lloyd MP by Jennie Rigg on Rubbish black and white nightmare trousers.
Should Eastbourne MP have whip withdrawn over Brexit deal vote?

3. Lib Dem Peer to be suspended by House of Lords over sexual harassment case by Mark Pack on Mark Pack.
Except it didn’t quite work out like that.

4. Brexit: What is next for the left? More complicated even than it sounds by Nick Tyrone on NickTyrone.com.
If only the left could agree amongst itself….

5. The Eastbourne Ultimatum by James Baillie on Thoughts of Progress.
“Even a broad church has to put its walls somewhere.”

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. Interventions made by Lib Dem MPs during the Brexit debate by Jane Chelliah on Feminist Mama .
All the Lib Dem MPs’ speeches in one place.

7. Western Australia: a place to live rather than visit? by Matthew Green on Thinking Liberal.
An account of a visit to the other Perth.

8. A little cheery thing, because we all need one in these benighted times by Jennie Rigg on Rubbish black and white nightmare trousers.
A nugget of joy for New Year’s Day.

9. Buzzy bee illustrations can’t distract from the cruelty of Universal Credit by Maelo Manning on Liberal Girl, aged 19.
Maelo wonders if we’ve landed in some dystopian capitalist nightmare.

10. Why are they calling Nick Clegg the bionic man by Jonathan Calder on Liberal England.
I mainly chose this one for the reference to Brian Niblett. But you can probably guess why.

11. The House of Lords and allegations of sexual harassment by Peter Black on Peter Black.
Peter was appalled by how out of touch the Lords were and thinks the debate on Lord Lester was a good example of why we should have an elected second chamber.

12. A farcical meeting but largely with the right outcomes by Richard Kemp on But what does Richard Kemp think?
All “bollocks and bravado” down at the Council.

Your bonus this week comes from Holly Matthies. It’s actually from last year, but is worth re-reading in the run-up too the Transgender Day of Remembrance on Tuesday. In Fight like hell for the living she tells us:

Trans people are people: the ones I know care about their families and their hobbies and their work…exactly the same stuff as the cis people I know. I am furious and I’m determined to channel that fury into helping bring about a world in which trans people don’t have to dread seeing headlines in a newsagents, turning on Radio 4, or looking at their own twitter mentions. It’s the very least they deserve.

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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