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Author Archives: Mark Pack

Mark was the Liberal Democrat Head of Innovations until June 2009 and is now at Blue Rubicon. He also lectures at City University and is co-author of 101 Ways To Win An Election. He blogs at www.markpack.org.uk and is on Twitter as @markpack. He likes chocolate. Lots of it.
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Jo Grimond: Towards the sound of gunfire

By Mark Pack | Tue 26th June 2012 - 3:50 pm

A better understanding of Jo Grimond’s life is always a healthy corrective to some of the cartoon caricatures about right-wing lurches and Thatcherite policies that sometimes get thrown around over the views of contemporary Liberal Democrats.

Grimond was, after all, a man who talked of himself as being on the centre-left and who pushed for a progressive realignment of politics that would see a new centre-left party supplant Labour. Off and on feelers went out to those in Labour ranks during his career. And yet, he was …

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Posted in Books | Tagged featured, history, jo grimond and michael mcmanus | 8 Comments

David Boyle’s appointment is excellent news

By Mark Pack | Mon 25th June 2012 - 9:53 am

Under Charles Kennedy’s leadership, the party had a simple and generally popular approach to public services: Kennedy consistently supported higher spending on favourite public services and appointed as party spokespeople those with experience of that service. So in education, for example, it was ex-headteacher Phil Willis leading for the party, promoting costed policies to put more cash into the party’s priorities.

Overall, the party’s plans involved raising at least as much in extra taxes or savings as it wanted to spend, so the net effect was fiscally respectable but for each individual public service the party’s answer was pretty much, “we’ll …

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Posted in News | Tagged ben brogan, charles kennedy, Danny Alexander, david boyle, jonathan calder, nick clegg and public services | 6 Comments

Revealed: The document that explains how Unite intends to take over the Labour party

By Mark Pack | Sun 24th June 2012 - 10:50 am

That’s the headline on a post over on Labour Uncut, and they have the full internal Unite strategy document to corroborate those claims:

The strategy is a powerful statement of intent. It’s clear that Unite intend to fundamentally change Labour…

In one passage, plans are set out to recruit 5000 new members from Unite into the Labour party. But this is no altruistic membership drive; the purpose of this influx of activists is to control local constituency parties…

The document goes on to outline how these new activists will be marshalled by Unite’s political structures to act as a bloc within CLPs. There

…

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Posted in News | Tagged labour party and UNITE | 10 Comments

David Walter memorial service: Wednesday 27 June

By Mark Pack | Sun 24th June 2012 - 9:00 am

In March the exceptionally popular David Walter lost his battle with cancer, and a memorial service is being held for him this week:

Wednesday June 27th at 2pm at St Brides Church, Fleet Street EC4Y 8AU

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Posted in News | Tagged chris rennard and david walter | Leave a comment

This doesn’t look like a rebalancing housing market to me

By Mark Pack | Sat 23rd June 2012 - 10:50 am

Continuing this week’s mini-housing theme, here are the latest changes in house prices published this week by the Office of National Statistics:

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Posted in News | Tagged housing | 6 Comments

The weekend debate: Is mandatory arbitration the answer to public transport strikes?

By Mark Pack | Sat 23rd June 2012 - 9:25 am

Here’s your starter for ten in our weekend slot where we throw up an idea or thought for debate…

With the Olympics approaching and not all the details of staff conditions on London’s public transport settled, talk of how easy or not it should be to call a strike is often popping up in political debates. The answer from many Conservatives is to make strikes harder by demanding a minimum turnout threshold for strikes. That idea often runs into criticism and the one time I’ve sent a tweet which trended on the front page of Twitter’s website in its old guise …

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Posted in Op-eds | Tagged boris johnson, qantas, strikes and weekend debate | 9 Comments

The rise of the private renters

By Mark Pack | Fri 22nd June 2012 - 9:25 am

On Wednesday I returned to the theme of how private renters get short shrift in British politics. You can fight through a bulging email folder of press releases from politicians wanting to make mortgages easier, cheaper, safer and more numerous before you find one that talks about tackling any of the issues private renters face.

This continuing neglect of them is despite the continuing increase in their numbers, as new figures for the UK published this week show:

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Posted in News | Tagged housing | 12 Comments

Can you tell the heroes from the villains in the sub-prime mortgage disaster?

By Mark Pack | Thu 21st June 2012 - 10:25 am

Michael Lewis’s highly readable account of the collapse of the US sub-prime mortgage market and the worldwide financial crisis it triggered focuses on a small number of characters. People with iconoclastic views determined not to be constrained by the old conventional rules. People who created new financial investments. People who put money into places their investors did not really understand on a good day and did not even know what had been done with their money on a bad day. People who made huge profits …

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Posted in Books | Tagged economy, featured, financial irresponsibility and michael lewis | 8 Comments

What sort of mid-term review should the government hold?

By Mark Pack | Thu 21st June 2012 - 7:55 am

Two new publications look in some detail at how coalition government is working and should work. The sources of the authors – the University College London Constitution Unit and the Institute for Government – gives a clue about their perspectives, and it is a rather different one from that of the usual political commentary.

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Posted in News | Tagged Akash Paun, institute for government and Stuart Hallifax | 2 Comments

Is a high home ownership rate a sign of a successful country?

By Mark Pack | Wed 20th June 2012 - 2:50 pm

People who rent in the private sector get short shrift in British politics. Renting is rarely talked about and when it is, it is almost always in the context of it being seen as inferior to owner-occupation. It is as if a private renter is simply someone who has not been successful or lucky enough to become an owner-occupier.

As I wrote last year:

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Posted in News | Tagged housing | 16 Comments

English Party warms to Lib Dem candidates in Police & Crime Commissioner elections

By Mark Pack | Wed 20th June 2012 - 8:25 am

The original moves in the party to pass up (mostly) on fighting Police & Crime Commissioner (PCC) elections generated heated debate and many local parties have made use of their say in the process to push for the party to fight the election in their area. As a result, a steady trickle of adverts have been appearing as selection processes start for many of the Commissioner posts.

In his report to the forthcoming English Council, English Party chair Peter Ellis has confirmed the party’s official warming to the idea of fighting the elections:

With the introduction of the mayoral and PCC elections

…

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Posted in Party policy and internal matters | Tagged elected police commissioners and peter ellis | 18 Comments

The seven EU members who are less creditworthy than myself

By Mark Pack | Tue 19th June 2012 - 2:25 pm

Following Robert Peston’s comparison of what interest rate the Italian government is charged for borrowing money compared to what his own household would be charged (Italy turns out to be more creditworthy than the Pestons, but only just), I thought I would take a look to see how I compare.

Take that, then, Cyprus, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Portugal, Romania and Spain. You are the seven EU members who are being charged a higher interest rate to borrow money long-term than I would be.

Posted in News | Tagged euro and robert peston | 5 Comments

Vince Cable on “one of the great acts of economic vandalism in modern times”

By Mark Pack | Tue 19th June 2012 - 10:25 am

Yesterday Vince Cable gave a sweeping speech about the current state of the economy, lessons from the 1930s and the way forward.

The parallels with the 1930s are in some ways obvious, but as Cable pointed out there are important differences. In particular, in the 1930s there was no similar financial crash in Britain to mirror what happened this time. However, in another major respect this time round looks somewhat better than the 1930s as unemployment has not soared in a similar way, helped by the double-edged flexibility of wages. This time round, real wages have suffered, spreading the pain more widely but keeping more people in work.

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Posted in News | Tagged economy, housing and vince cable | 11 Comments

The New Depression: Richard Duncan’s prognosis of our economic ills and the answer to them

By Mark Pack | Mon 18th June 2012 - 1:54 pm

A slight change from the usual in my day job at MHP Communications has come courtesy of our client Richard Duncan and his new book, The New Depression, which is primarily about the US but with lessons that are very applicable to the UK.

In a nutshell, his case is half-Austrian. Or indeed half-Keynesian. That is because whilst Duncan’s diagnosis of the current economic ills is very much in the Austrian school of economics, with its emphasis on the role of credit, his prescription for fixing the economy is large-scale borrowing to fund infrastructure work, all of which sounds rather Keynesian.

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Posted in Books and Op-eds | Tagged economy and richard duncan | 17 Comments

Good news on electoral registration data geekery

By Mark Pack | Sun 17th June 2012 - 6:05 pm

As GeoConnexion reports:

Ordnance Survey and GeoPlace have welcomed the Cabinet Office’s call for greater use of Unique Property Reference Numbers (UPRNs) across the public sector, to support the move towards individual electoral registration (IER).

UPRNs are assigned to address records by local authorities at the planning stage and persist for the lifetime of each and every property across Great Britain. This means that every property is uniquely recorded and can be unequivocally identified by any organisation that holds the UPRN in its own records. Ordnance Survey publishes the UPRNs in its AddressBase range of products.

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Posted in Election law and News | Tagged electoral registration | 4 Comments

A longer read for the weekend: how Obama orders the death of terrorists

By Mark Pack | Sun 17th June 2012 - 11:25 am

This week the New York Times ran a fascinating, detailed study of the drone war being fought by Barack Obama as he decides which alleged terrorists will be targeted by the American military:

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Posted in LDVUSA and News | Tagged barack obama, lynne featherstone, pakistan and terrorism | 6 Comments

An 8th reason why the Interception of Communications Commissioner should go

By Mark Pack | Sat 16th June 2012 - 10:25 am

I’ve previously blogged about the catastrophic failure of the Interception of Communications Commissioner, giving seven different failures, any one of which would be damning but cumulatively make the post a good entrant for ‘most failed regulator’.

They included such failures as ignoring warning signs of widespread law breaking:

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Posted in Op-eds | Tagged featured and Interception of Communications Commissioner | 1 Comment

Thirty years of American politics satirised in three minutes

By Mark Pack | Fri 15th June 2012 - 2:25 pm

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Posted in Humour and LDVUSA | Leave a comment

Politicians are not mere pawns in the hands of journalists

By Mark Pack | Fri 15th June 2012 - 7:20 am

Understandably the Leveson Inquiry has concentrated on the misdeeds of journalists and the behaviour of newspaper owners. However, the appearance of a series of figures this week at Leveson could – indeed should – have highlighted how often the power lies with politicians, not the media. We had three figures appear who all, in their own very different ways, showed that despite all the talk of politicians been cowed by the media, it is far from uncommon for politicians to have far too much power over the media.

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Posted in Op-eds | Tagged gordon brown, john major, journalism, leveson inquiry, new statesman, nick clegg and phil cowley | 6 Comments

Eric Lubbock: From Orpington Man to Buddhist Monk?

By Mark Pack | Thu 14th June 2012 - 10:25 am

For many years Adrian Slade has interviewed prominent Liberal Democrats. To mark his recent decision to make his archive of the interview recordings available to researchers and other interested parties, Lib Dem Voice is running a selection of his write-ups of interviews from over the years. The latest is from 2002 and is with Lord Avebury, formerly Eric Lubbock – victor of the 1962 Orpington by-election, MP for eight years and chair of the parliamentary human right s group from 1976 to 1997.

For a few astonishing days in March 1962, the Liberal Party led the Conservative and Labour parties in the opinion polls, the only time it had ever done so since polls were invented.

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Posted in Op-eds | Tagged adrian slade, eric lubbock, featured, history, jeremy thorpe, jo grimond, lord avebury and orpington | 1 Comment

Two things to remember today

By Mark Pack | Thu 14th June 2012 - 7:25 am

In a time of austerity and cutbacks, it is only right that Liberal Democrat Voice leads the way, so the traditional ‘three things to remember’ has been ruthlessly cut to a mere two.

Today’s the day the official consultation on equal marriage closes.

Step one then: if you have not yet responded, do so now.

Step two: why not mark the end of this consultation by saying thank you to the Liberal Democrat minister who made it happen? You can make a donation to support the campaigning of Lynne Featherstone and her constituency party here.

P.S. Oh all right, here is a …

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Posted in News | Tagged equal marriage and lynne featherstone | 2 Comments

Danny Alexander addresses the GMB – emerging liberal and successful

By Mark Pack | Wed 13th June 2012 - 3:58 pm

Yesterday Danny Alexander headed off to the annual conference of my old union, the GMB, to give a tricky speech. The GMB isn’t just a consistent critic of the government, it has also criticised Labour for not being different enough from the government in its eyes. Throw in contentious issues such as the pension reforms and merely avoiding uproar would have been a success. In fact, the Liberal Democrat Chief Secretary to the Treasury did far better than that:

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Posted in News | Tagged Danny Alexander, gmb and trade unions | 2 Comments

How leaflets used to look: a 1920s Liberal attack leaflet

By Mark Pack | Wed 13th June 2012 - 10:50 am

Earlier this week I blogged about the skilful presentation of the Liberal Party’s economic plan in a 1929 leaflet, but what about leaflets having a go at other parties? Here is how the Liberals of the time attacked Labour’s Land Policy:

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Posted in Op-eds | Tagged history and how leaflets used to look | Leave a comment

Why Gordon Brown should be voting for Jeremy Hunt tomorrow

By Mark Pack | Tue 12th June 2012 - 7:31 pm

Yesterday, at the Leveson Inquiry, Gordon Brown declined to take responsibility for the activities of his special advisers.

Tomorrow, Parliament debates whether Jeremy Hunt should take responsibility for the activities of one of his special advisers.

So I think we can work out which way Gordon Brown will be voting tomorrow, can’t we?

Posted in Op-eds | Tagged gordon brown and jeremy hunt | 5 Comments

A letter to the Archbishop of Canterbury: have we read the same history books?

By Mark Pack | Tue 12th June 2012 - 1:15 pm

Your Grace,

I certainly don’t except us to agree on everything when it comes to religion. After all, you believe in God and I don’t.

But I am surprised how different the view of our country’s history seems to be. You and your colleagues talk about the prospect of equal marriage – a prospect it is worth remembering that other strands of the Christian family are welcoming, not to mention many members of the Church of England – as if it is one of the greatest threats to the Church of England in the last 500 years.

Really?

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Posted in Op-eds | Tagged archbishop of canterbury and equal marriage | 23 Comments

How to survive a campaign and not sell your soul

By Mark Pack | Tue 12th June 2012 - 10:25 am

The successful (and at times rather controversial) Australian pollster Mark Textor has a great piece in the Sydney Morning Herald about how to survive election campaigns. It includes these tips:

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Posted in Campaign Corner | Tagged australian politics and mark textor | 5 Comments

How leaflets used to look: the 1929 Liberal economic plan

By Mark Pack | Mon 11th June 2012 - 12:54 pm

With the economy continuing to dominate politics, it is time to take another dip into my collection of old political leaflets and have a a look at how the Liberal Party of 1929 talked about the issue:

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Posted in Op-eds | Tagged featured, history and how leaflets used to look | 5 Comments

The weekend debate: should benefits for pensioners be restricted?

By Mark Pack | Sat 9th June 2012 - 9:25 am

Here’s your starter for ten in our weekend slot where we throw up an idea or thought for debate…

Nick Clegg and Iain Duncan Smith have both been arguing within the government for rich pensioners to have their benefits cut:

Nick Clegg is backing calls for cuts in pension benefits such as winter fuel payments and free bus passes. David Cameron is said to be adamant that the Tories should keep to a pledge made before the general election that the payments remain. But Clegg is understood to have told colleagues he wants the winter payments and free TV licences cut

…

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Posted in Op-eds | Tagged benefits, iain duncan smith, nick clegg and weekend debate | 44 Comments

Four councillors, four people who should be voted out

By Mark Pack | Fri 8th June 2012 - 8:25 am

Ah councillors, bless ’em:

Labour Councillor Suspended From Party For ‘Shirt Lifting Gender Bender’ Attack – Mike Harrison, Thanet, who has been suspended from a month (which, assuming he’s then let back into the Labour group, is rather different from being suspended from the party permanently).
Thanet Tory councillor suspended for Aids answerphone message – Ken Gregory, also Thanet. Must be something in the water there. His suspension is pending further investigation.
Tory councillor faces calls to quit over ‘n***** in woodpile’ comment – Gerry Forsbrey, Spelthorne.
Conservative councillor derides NHS as “Marxist” – John Butcher, Surrrey, with a nasty

…

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Posted in Local government and News | Tagged gerry forsbrey, john butcher, ken gregory, mike harrison, spelthorne council, surrey county council and thanet council | 8 Comments

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