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.
Mark Pack

The technology that will defeat the government’s online monitoring plans

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

Following the Queen’s Speech it is becoming a little clearer – although only a little clearer – what it is that some parts of the Home Office want to achieve by pushing for the Communications Capability Development Programme (CCDP, aka Online Snooping Charter).

One scenario is this: the law enforcement authorities start having solid grounds for suspecting someone is up to no good. Currently, they can then get access to the history of that person’s phone calls – who they rung and when from their landline or mobile. Getting such retrospective data for some forms of internet-based communications is possible, albeit …

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Posted in Humour and News | Tagged | 4 Comments
Mark Pack

Two anniversaries: Norman Baker and Stephen Williams

By Mark Pack | Wed 9th May 2012 - 3:25 pm

From Stephen Williams’s blog:

Twenty years ago today I was a candidate, nervously awaiting the outcome of my first electoral contest …

My campaign in 1992 would have been recognisable to candidates from previous decades.  Our volunteers delivered two leaflets and knocked on every door in the ward.  The leaflet text was composed on a typewriter and the black and white photographs were turned into dots for printing by a photo bureau.  The canvass cards for door knocking were made by me and my agent (Sean Emmett, cllr for

…

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Posted in News | Tagged and | 1 Comment
Mark Pack

Ludovic Kennedy: a man who just missed becoming Liberal leader

By Mark Pack | Wed 9th May 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 with broadcaster, writer and twice Liberal candidate Sir Ludovic Kennedy from 2003.

In the 1959 general election just 2,000 votes separated Ludovic Kennedy from becoming Liberal MP for Rochdale, and possibly a future party leader.

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Posted in Op-eds | Tagged , , , and | 7 Comments
Mark Pack

What do the academics say? How an intention to move effects turnout

By Mark Pack | Tue 8th May 2012 - 10:50 am

Welcome to the latest in our occasional series highlighting interesting findings from academic research. Today – how intention to move home influences turnout in Britain.

The finding is from “Geographic Mobility, Social Connections and Voter Turnout” by Keith Dowding, Peter John and Daniel Rubenson (Journal of Elections, Public Opinion and Parties, Vol. 22 No.2, May 2012):

We have shown that the intention to move will reduce the probability that someone will vote, suggesting that people take into account the benefits consequent upon their vote when deciding whether to cast a ballot. Those intending to move are less likely to gain benefits

…

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Posted in What do the academics say? | Tagged | 4 Comments
Mark Pack

How to get Lib Dem Voice by email

By Mark Pack | Mon 7th May 2012 - 4:25 pm

Why not join hundreds of other Lib Dem Voice readers in getting our latest headlines by email?

Some people like regularly visiting a site to see if there’s new stories of interest. Some people like subscribing to its news feed (RSS) and checking that way. But if you prefer email, you can instead sign up to get a daily early morning email with a summary of the previous day’s posts from Lib Dem Voice, complete with a note of how many comments each post has got and convenient links to click on if any take your fancy and you want to take a read.

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Posted in Site news | Leave a comment
Mark Pack

Vince Cable: Free Radical – what the memoirs say about the man

By Mark Pack | Mon 7th May 2012 - 10:25 am

A little belatedly, I’ve got round to reading Vince Cable’s memoirs (or rather, listening to the audio book version – what better accompaniment to a delivery round?).

Vince Cable’s memoirs do much to explain both the praise and the criticism he has received. At one point he writes how “I am often asked why I am not party leader…”. Conceit or modesty? You can read that comment either way and it is easy to see why he produces such different views.

Views differ too over quite where …

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Posted in Books | Tagged , and | 1 Comment
Mark Pack

MORE SHOCK NEWS: Bill that was going to be in Queen’s Speech will be in Queen’s Speech

By Mark Pack | Mon 7th May 2012 - 9:23 am

Pick and mix your allocation of blame between some Tory right-wing MPs and some political journalists, between deliberate deceit and genuine confusion as you wish, but as the dust settles on yesterday’s political stories about the Queen’s Speech the news is remarkably dull:

  • A Bill that was not going to be in the Queen’s Speech will not be in the Queen’s Speech, and
  • A Bill that was going to be in the Queen’s Speech will be in the Queen’s Speech.

Or in other words, ignore the nonsense about how the absence of an equal marriage Bill from the Queen’s Speech means the government …

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Mark Pack

SHOCK NEWS: A bill that wasn’t going to be in the Queen’s Speech isn’t going to be in the Queen’s Speech

By Mark Pack | Sun 6th May 2012 - 10:47 am

The plan wasn’t for an equal marriage Bill to be in this Queen’s Speech, so the news that there will not be an equal marriage Bill in the Queen’s Speech is hardly news – even if some on the Tory right (unenlightened wing)* are trying to turn this into a story about how the government is backing down on the issue.

As Lynne Featherstone, Minister for Equalities, puts it on her blog:

In the aftermath of a tough set of election results for both Conservatives and Liberal Democrats – I couldn’t help but notice a few naysayers popping up in the

…

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Posted in News | Tagged , and | 6 Comments
Mark Pack

How many people are on the electoral register who shouldn’t be?

By Mark Pack | Sat 5th May 2012 - 2:37 pm

The Daily Express reports:

 Nick de Bois cross-checked the names of constituents seeking his help to stay in the UK and found 21 out of a sample 100 had signed up for voting rights.

The Tory backbencher is calling on ministers to tighten registration rules, claiming it is harder to get a library card than a ballot paper…

The MP said some people get on the electoral roll just to obtain credit cards or commit financial fraud.

Posted in Election law and News | Tagged and | 10 Comments
Mark Pack

Six thoughts on the results so far (UPDATED)

By Mark Pack | Fri 4th May 2012 - 8:50 pm

An update to my earlier post, adding in the YouTube clip and reflecting a couple of other pieces of news, though still pre-London results.

For the overall picture, see my views on BBC Breakfast from the amazing new Salford studios this morning:

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Posted in Local government and Op-eds | Tagged , , and | 80 Comments
Mark Pack

How to show you’re a party member when you post a comment

By Mark Pack | Thu 3rd May 2012 - 8:50 pm

The option to put a photo next to your comment is open to everyone. In addition, if you’re a party member you can also have this indicated when you post a comment.

It’s very simple. You just need to register for our online forum and get a username and password. Then in future before commenting, login with your username. (On most devices for accessing the internet, you can turn on the setting for your login to be remembered so you do not have to do this each time.) You will then see the party logo appearing next to your name when you post up …

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Posted in Site news | 1 Comment
Mark Pack

Two weeks, two major achievements for the Liberal Democrats in government

By Mark Pack | Thu 3rd May 2012 - 9:50 am

Last week the Green Investment Bank made its first loans, as Nick Clegg mentioned yesterday, and this week the Protection of Freedoms Bill received Royal Assent and became an Act, as Tom Brake wrote about on this site.

The Protection of Freedoms Act includes the banning of rogue private wheel clampers, who are so unpopular that when Lynne Featherstone announced the plans last year it resulted in wall-to-wall positive coverage from the broadcast media, the tabloid press, the broadsheet press and even the pollsters. When the media and 87% of the public love a policy of ours …

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Posted in News | Tagged , , and | 6 Comments
Mark Pack

How to vote – and what to do once you’ve voted

By Mark Pack | Thu 3rd May 2012 - 6:50 am

Got an election in your area today? Here are a few key pieces of information for you.

Voting in person

  • Polling stations are open between 7am and 10pm today. No votes can be cast after 10pm; it’s not like the shops where being in the queue at closing time is enough.
  • You don’t need your polling card to vote.
  • You have to vote at your local polling station, which is indicated on the card. If you’ve lost your card and aren’t sure where to vote, you can contact your local council.
  • In some parts of the country

…

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Posted in Local government and News | 2 Comments
Mark Pack

Police investigate Labour in Leeds over fake poll card allegations

By Mark Pack | Wed 2nd May 2012 - 10:04 pm

The Leeds Labour Party is being investigated by the police for over claims it has broken the law against issuing imitation poll cards. Parties and candidates are not allowed to issue leaflets which look like official poll cards, but this is what Labour has been distributing in the Otley and Yeadon ward:

After the legality of the leaflets was raised with them, the Labour Party has said they stopped delivering the leaflets.

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Posted in Election law and News | Tagged , and | 13 Comments
Mark Pack

Something you can do to win Lib Dem votes today

By Mark Pack | Wed 2nd May 2012 - 1:55 pm

The best message to win Liberal Democrat votes varies from contest to contest tomorrow as the issues at the top of voters’ minds in one place are not all the same as in another, especially when it comes to local council elections.

But with the Liberal Democrats in government, national issues cannot be ignored and there are many good messages to get over about what we’re achieving in government, from fairer taxes to banking reform, and from green investment to civil liberties improvements.

You can help get that …

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Posted in Local government and News | 4 Comments
Mark Pack

Nick Clegg trashes Liam Fox’s economic policy demands

By Mark Pack | Wed 2nd May 2012 - 9:55 am

During yesterday’s Radio 4 interview with Nick Clegg there was a feisty exchange over why so much time in the interview was being taken up with the details of when and to who Jeremy Hunt should next answer questions to about his conduct, rather than issues such as the state of the economy.

Certainly the media loves investigatory process stories. Not only the Clegg interview but the subsequent coverage of it neglected the economy, even though Clegg had some choice words to say about former minister Liam Fox:

Martha Kearney: Liam Fox recently accused the Liberal Democrats of being a brake on

…

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Posted in News | Tagged , , , and | 6 Comments
Mark Pack

Police arrest BNP candidate for Mayor of Liverpool

By Mark Pack | Tue 1st May 2012 - 5:43 pm

The BBC reports:

The BNP candidate standing for elected mayor of Liverpool has been arrested by Merseyside Police.

Mike Whitby has been detained following an allegation that nomination forms for the mayoral elections had been fraudulently filled in…

The complaint was made to Merseyside Police following an investigation by the Liverpool Echo.

UPDATE September 2012: “The Crown Prosecution Service said there was insufficient evidence to take the case through the courts” – Liverpool Echo

Posted in Election law and News | Tagged and | Leave a comment
Mark Pack

How much chocolate can you put on a gingerbread man before he becomes standard-rated for VAT?

By Mark Pack | Mon 30th April 2012 - 8:25 am

You may not have considered this question before, so I’ll give you a little time to ponder it.

So, got your answer?

Here’s the official one from HMRC: standard-rate VAT applies to “Gingerbread men decorated with chocolate unless this amounts to no more than a couple of dots for eyes”.

But, but, but… what if the eyes are not chocolate and instead the gingerbread man has a couple of chocolate buttons instead? And what if, hurtling dangerously out of the 19th century, the gingerbread man is actually a gingerbread …

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Posted in News | Tagged , , , and | 30 Comments
Mark Pack

Barbara Janke to step down as Lib Dem leader in Bristol

By Mark Pack | Sun 29th April 2012 - 11:25 am

Via the BBC:

Barbara Janke said she would stand down as council leader and as leader of the Liberal Democrat group.

Ms Janke announced her decision to the Lib Dem-controlled authority’s cabinet earlier. She said she made the decision as she approached her 65th birthday.

She said it had been an “enormous privilege” to serve as council leader in 2003-2004, 2005-2007 and from 2009 to the present.

She will remain leader of the Lib Dem group until the group’s annual meeting on 8 May, when a new leader will be chosen.

Posted in Local government | Tagged and | Leave a comment
Mark Pack

Simon Hughes challenges Harriet Harman over Labour’s record in Sheffield

By Mark Pack | Sun 29th April 2012 - 9:55 am

From a party news release:

Liberal Democrat Deputy Leader, Simon Hughes, joined Liberal Democrat councillors in Sheffield to highlight more than £4m of wasteful spending by Labour locally.

The figures were revealed while Labour Deputy Leader, Harriet Harman, visited the city, attempting to defend Labour’s waste on Sheffield City Council.

Local Liberal Democrat councillors are campaigning to save Sheffield’s weekly bin collections, vital recycling services and local dementia homes, placed under threat of closure by Labour councillors.

Senior Sheffield Labour councillors have argued that no money is available, but there has been a staggering £4.2m of wasteful spending.

In the last 12 months Labour councillors have:

  • Approved

…

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Posted in Local government and News | Tagged , and | 2 Comments
Mark Pack

Poll shows Labour’s vote up but Livingstone’s vote down

By Mark Pack | Sat 28th April 2012 - 1:15 pm

When phone polling was first introduced in the UK it attracted flak over its accuracy (least remembered about those ASL polls the better), but also gained popularity through both its lower costs compared to the then dominant face to face polling and also its greater flexibility. The same pattern has been seen again with the spread of internet polling the UK. Just as face to face polling used to be the gold standard and phone polling the upstarts, now phone polling is the gold standard and internet polling the upstarts.

The merits or otherwise of YouGov have been much debated elsewhere …

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Posted in London and Polls | Tagged and | 6 Comments
Mark Pack

First of the new style Federal Policy Committee reports published

By Mark Pack | Sat 28th April 2012 - 11:25 am

Following the series of questions from me to the party’s federal committees at the party’s Spring conference, all the major committees promised to provide written reports in future after each of their full committee meetings.

The first such Federal Executive report has been posted up in the members-only forum on this site (see the Party Organisation section), but the Federal Policy Committee has instead gone for publishing its first report via the main party website (see the foot of this page), which I have reproduced below.

Although the report is fairly minimalist, it does provide the key information about which policy groups are likely to be reporting when. That is important information for anyone wanting to influence the party’s policy decisions as working with the grain of the administrative calendar where possible makes things easier and more likely to be successful than ignoring it.

Federal Policy Committee Meeting 21 March 2012

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Posted in Party policy and internal matters | Tagged | 1 Comment
Mark Pack

Julian Huppert in five minutes

By Mark Pack | Sat 28th April 2012 - 10:45 am

How can you possibly compress Cambridge MP Julian Huppert into a mere five minutes? Well, one of the LSE’s blogs has attempted that and here is a sample of the outcome:

Julian Huppert, Lib Dem PPC for CambridgeYou have mentioned that you would like to see more scientists entering Parliament. What advice would you give to those who might be tempted to consider a career jump into politics, and why do you think it would be important for more academics to move into politics?

We need more people with a scientific background in

…

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Posted in News | Tagged | 5 Comments
Mark Pack

The Interception of Communications Commissioner has failed

By Mark Pack | Fri 27th April 2012 - 10:25 am

I’ve been reading through all the annual reports issues by the Interception of Communications Commissioner since the passage of Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000. He is meant to make sure that the powers granted to public bodies under RIPA to intercept our communications are being used correctly.

The annual reports are not a pretty read, especially when set against a modicum of knowledge about the outside world during the years the reports cover. Consider the following.

1. No scrutiny of the costs system

First, under RIPA there is provision for the government to pay communication service providers costs for meeting the …

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Posted in Op-eds | Tagged , , , , and | 2 Comments
Mark Pack

Good news as Charles Taylor found guilty

By Mark Pack | Fri 27th April 2012 - 9:55 am

Good news for international justice with the first conviction by an international court of a former head of state since the Nuremburg trials:

International judges have found former Liberian leader Charles Taylor guilty of aiding and abetting war crimes during the Sierra Leone civil war.

Taylor, 64, has been on trial in The Hague at the UN-backed Special Court for Sierra Leone for almost five years…

Taylor was convicted on 11 counts including terror, murder and rape. (BBC)

His original indictment set an important precedent as he was a current head of state at the time. His conviction now sets another welcome …

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Posted in Europe / International and News | Tagged , and | 1 Comment
Mark Pack

Police called in over electoral fraud allegations in Tower Hamlets

By Mark Pack | Thu 26th April 2012 - 7:24 pm

The Evening Standard reports:

Scotland Yard was today asked by the elections watchdog to investigate “unprecedented” evidence of voter fraud ahead of next week’s polling for London Mayor.

The Electoral Commission passed evidence to police after six Labour councillors in Tower Hamlets wrote to warn of “serious abuses of the electoral register”. It follows growing concerns of cheating in the east London borough, involving the creation of bogus voters at a series of addresses.

An investigation by the Evening Standard this year found instances of eight names registered in one room to vote. It is claimed that a man locked up in

…

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Posted in Election law and News | Tagged , and | Leave a comment
Mark Pack

Barry Norman on life as film critic and a liberal

By Mark Pack | Thu 26th April 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 will be running a selection of his write-ups of interviews from over the years. The first is with broadcaster, writer and Liberal Democrat, Barry Norman from 2003.

For British cinemagoers Barry Norman is the personification of film. For twenty-six years, with only a brief break in ‘81/’82 when he fronted ‘Omnibus’ for the BBC, he was the authentic voice …

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Posted in Op-eds | Tagged , , and | 2 Comments
Mark Pack

Conservative councillor joins Lib Dems in Portsmouth

By Mark Pack | Wed 25th April 2012 - 10:56 pm

From the Portsmouth News:

THE youngest member of the Dinenage dynasty has turned her back on the Conservative party.

With less than a fortnight to go until she stands down as a ward councillor for Milton, Sarah Dinenage has defected to Portsmouth’s Lib Dems.

The 30-year-old sister of Gosport Tory MP Caroline – and daughter of TV veteran Fred – claimed that bitter divisions within the local Tory party had driven her out.

She also said she was following her friend and former campaign manager, Cllr Lee Hunt, who defected in 2009…

Miss Dinenage said: ‘Portsmouth’s Tories have spent a lot of time fighting among

…

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Posted in Local government and News | Tagged | Leave a comment
Mark Pack

Running for office? What voters think of your income

By Mark Pack | Tue 24th April 2012 - 10:20 am

Welcome to the latest in our occasional series highlighting interesting findings from academic research. Today – how voters prefer people who earn less rather than more.

The findings come from research presenting the details of two fictional candidates to voters and asking them what they thought of each. Details of one of the fictional candidates were then altered to see how that changed the reaction of voters.

Here is what voters were initially told about that person:

John Burns is 48 years old, and was born and brought up in your area, before going to University to study for a degree in mathematics. …

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Posted in What do the academics say? | Tagged and | 5 Comments
Mark Pack

ISA tax breaks for savings: cap them at £15,000

By Mark Pack | Tue 24th April 2012 - 7:25 am

The combination of being in government and of facing a large deficit means the list of tax increases and spending cuts Liberal Democrats have been calling for over many years has been mostly exhausted. Capital gains tax is up, pension tax breaks for the richest has been curbed, the ID cards database is gone and so on.

It is good that so many policies are now in place and there are plenty of political battles still to come in the second half of this Parliament, especially over mansion tax. However, …

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Posted in Op-eds | Tagged and | 36 Comments
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  • Big Tall Tim
    An excellent article Victor on the great work you are doing. It's a great shame people like David can't give credit where credit is due....
  • Scott Rennie
    Couldn’t agree more Karen. It’s the best speech in a generation, and more importantly an opportunity to build common cause on things that matter to us, like...
  • Nigel Jones
    I too thank you for this interesting article. Community has been in decline for decades in most parts of the country, but this seems particularly the case where...
  • David Le Grice
    All whilst playing second fiddle to the Green party of course. And credit for toppling Labour goes almost entirely to them. Something that was completely avoid...
  • Nigel Jones
    Sorry! in the above I meant to say " we should be heard more on NATIONAL issues when we are campaigning locally". How else can people know what we stand for on ...