Six of the Best 308

"Nick needs to listen to the experts in the party who may be able to help him find a way through this. The risks of being so dismissive of the overwhelming view of the party are clear." Caron Lindsay, writing on Lib Dem Voice, calls on Nick Clegg to talk to the opponents of secret courts in his own party.

More in sorrow than anger, Lib Dem Minister Lynne Featherstone takes on the critics of gay marriage.

Paul Linford offers his review of the political year.

Phil's Purple Bus Blog comes across an inconveniently honest customer.

"There’s a second-hand bookshop around the corner from where I live called Ripping Yarns – just a hole in the wall, near a relatively busy intersection, but close to Highgate Woods. It’s been there since before the war but I’m not sure how much longer it will last." Benjamin Markovits, in the London Review of Books, fears for the future of a favourite bookshop and proposes a novel way of securing it.

Go Litel Blog, Go... introduces us to Arthur "Ticker" Mitchell, the hard man of Yorkshire cricket (and lends me this photograph).