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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Chester Conservative quits

By Mark Pack | Wed 6th December 2006 - 1:27 pm

Paul Offer, the Conservative candidate in Chester, has now resigned.

And this presumably means that Ian Lewis will shortly be eating his hat…

Posted in News | Tagged ian lewis and paul offer | 2 Comments

David Cameron: one today

By Mark Pack | Wed 6th December 2006 - 9:00 am

It’s one year since David Cameron became leader of the Conservative party. There has been, is and will be plenty of stuff about this anniversary, so I’ll just point out this animation.

Posted in News | Tagged david cameron | Leave a comment

Fourth Conservative Parliamentary candidate in trouble

By Mark Pack | Tue 5th December 2006 - 11:45 am

Chester, Westmorland and Lonsdale, North Norfolk and now Plymouth … it’s clearly not a good time to be a Conservative Parliamentary candidate.

Chester – Tories call their own candidate an embarrassment and want to oust him.
Westmorland – Tories oust candidate (sort of)
North Norfolk – problems with homophobia in the selection campaign (oh, and the new candidate, Trevor Ivory, is – according to The Samaritans – “beyond the pale”)

and now …

Plymouth Sutton – where the person voted for in the selection contest, er …, doesn’t get to be the candidate

Posted in News | Tagged ConservativeHome | 4 Comments

What will Liberal Democrats be doing at Christmas?

By Mark Pack | Tue 5th December 2006 - 10:00 am

The party’s asked a group of leading members for their top two books/DVDs etc to enjoy over the festive season. You can see what Ming Campbell and others recommend at www.libdems.org.uk/support/christmas.html

Posted in News | Tagged Ming Campbell | 4 Comments

David Cameron’s environmental record

By Mark Pack | Mon 4th December 2006 - 12:27 pm

The Daily Mirror has a good round-up today of the reality behind Cameron’s claims to be serious about the environment:

1 HIS CAR: David Cameron switched to a supposedly green Lexus GS, which is more polluting than the 10 best selling models in the UK.

2 GREEN TAXES: The Conservatives were silent during the debate on the recent Finance Bill on fuel duty, vehicle excise duty, climate change levy, land fill tax and aggregates levy.

3 NUCLEAR POWER: Cameron avoided the tricky issue by shunting the decision off to his policy commissions, which is not due to report until 2007. And Scottish Tories voted in May for the building of new nuclear power stations north of the border.

4 COMPANY LAW REFORM BILL: Shadow ministers in the Lords voted against measures in the Company Law Reform Bill requiring companies to give greater regard to the environment.

Posted in News | Tagged david cameron | Leave a comment

Homophobia amongst North Norfolk’s Tories?

By Mark Pack | Sun 3rd December 2006 - 2:31 pm

It looks as if during the selection of the Conservative candidate for North Norfolk, one of their members got up and asked this question:

“Could we be assured that neither of the candidates is a homosexual?”

I have no idea which of the candidates this question was aimed at or whether it is true (and couldn’t care less – whether a candidate has matching socks probably tells you more about their suitability to be an MP that whether or not they are gay).

If it’s true (and the source for this is a series of comments on Iain Dale’s blog) it’s a disgraceful …

Posted in News | Tagged homophobia, iain dale and north norfolk | 13 Comments

Double Tory candidate trouble

By Mark Pack | Sat 2nd December 2006 - 5:49 pm

Exhibit A from the nice, new, hug-a-hoodie Cameron party:

Trevor Ivory has been selected as the Conservative candidate in North Norfolk. This is the man who was described by the Samaritans as “beyond the pale” for making “inexcusable” comments about suicide. (He made a “joke” about Tony Blair commiting suicide and the country cheering up as a result).

Exhibit B from the nice, new, hug-a-hoodie Cameron party:

Richard Bell has been ousted as the Conservative candidate in Westmorland and Lonsdale.

There’s a less than flattering account of the proceedings in several comments on Iain Dale’s blog, though reasons seem to be thin on …

Posted in News | Tagged iain dale | 2 Comments

Cameron joins the Liberal Democrats

By Mark Pack | Fri 1st December 2006 - 11:56 pm

Yup, Cameron has joined the party.

Peter over at Liberal Review has the full story.

Posted in News | 1 Comment

Will Ian Lewis shortly be eating a hat?

By Mark Pack | Fri 1st December 2006 - 6:18 pm

Who is Ian Lewis you may well think. Well, before today I didn’t know him either – but his dietary habits have suddenly got my interest.

And it’s all because of the infighting amongst Chester City Conservatives. As the local paper reports:

CONSERVATIVE members of Chester City Council have branded their own party’s parliamentary candidate an embarrassment … The decision to censure Mr Offer was backed unanimously by the 22 members of the 27-strong group who were present.

As for Ian Lewis and the eating of hats:

Last week, regional press officer Ian Lewis told The Chronicle ‘I will eat my hat’ if Mr

…

Posted in News | Tagged ian lewis | 2 Comments

Newcastle: Labour lose seat to Lib Dems; Tories 4th

By Mark Pack | Fri 1st December 2006 - 12:02 am

The Liberal Democrats have taken a seat off Labour in a by-election in Lemington ward.

The result was:

Lib Dem: 1180 (47%)
Labour: 815 (32%)
BNP: 383 (15%)
Cons: 147 (6%)

The Labour councillor whose death resulted in the by-election had been elected in 2004, when the result was:

Labour: 1,595, 1,526, 1,421 (53%)
Lib Dem: 661, 656, 639 (22%)
Cons: 429, 420, 384 (14%)
National Front: 350 (12%)

Swing to the Lib Dems from Labour since 2004: 23%
Swing to the Lib Dems from the Tories since 2004: 17%

(Note: the ward has been fought once since 2004, but that was a straight Labour – Lib Dem contest, which the Lib Dems won, …

Posted in Council by-elections | Tagged lemington | 6 Comments

More Tory trouble on party funding

By Mark Pack | Thu 30th November 2006 - 10:04 am

From The Times:

The Conservative Party was last night under the spotlight over its massive debts to backers with overseas addresses and ‘non-trading’ companies. Several of the firms which lent money to the Tories are operating in tax havens or countries noted for banking secrecy.

Posted in News | Tagged party funding | Leave a comment

Conservatives keep their funding secret – again

By Mark Pack | Tue 28th November 2006 - 9:33 pm

Today’s headlines have been caught by the massive debts run up by the Conservative and Labour parties.

Full marks in the irony department to Tory HQ for unveiling a website calling people in debt tossers just before the publication of figures showing their own huge debts.

Buried in the figures are a few interesting snippets, such as the Tory party’s reliance on a £3.6 million loan from an overseas company – and as it is based in the British Virgin Islands, it has to publish almost no information about its activities.

So once again they’ve been using a funding method which allows them to …

Posted in News | Tagged iain dale, lord ashcroft and midlands industrial council | 12 Comments

Nick Clegg on the Freedom Bill

By Mark Pack | Mon 27th November 2006 - 10:52 pm

Nick has an article out today on the eGov monitor website about the Liberal Democrat proposals for a “Freedom Bill” which would axe unnecessary laws.

You can read more about the laws the Liberal Democrats would axe – and nominate your own – on the party’s website and you can watch Nick’s speech from conference where he launched the plans:

Posted in News | Tagged freedom bill and nick clegg | 5 Comments

STV petition

By Mark Pack | Sun 26th November 2006 - 5:25 pm

Amongst the various petitions on the 10 Downing Street website is this one calling for STV for public elections (as Scotland is getting for its local elections in May).

Posted in News | Tagged downing street petitions and STV | Leave a comment

What happens when you don’t have policies?

By Mark Pack | Sun 26th November 2006 - 9:57 am

“Tory leader’s satisfaction ratings are comparable to that of Howard, Hague and IDS … The revelation that only 25 per cent of the electorate consider themselves satisfied with Cameron’s performance as leader of the opposition – rising only to 45 per cent among Tory voters, down from 60 per cent in February – will be a blow to his inner circle, given that it suggests a similar trajectory to his failed predecessors Howard, Iain Duncan Smith and William Hague. The most common reason for dissatisfaction was lack of clarity about his policies.”

(This is The Observer’s comment on their latest …

Posted in Polls | Tagged david cameron | 2 Comments

Chairing a meeting, Conservative style

By Mark Pack | Fri 24th November 2006 - 10:01 am

You are chairing a public meeting with Ken Livingstone, put on to allow Londoners to question him about his job as Mayor.

Do you:

(a) Call half a dozen Tory councillors to ask questions rather than half a dozen more members of the public

(b) Not give away any indication that you know that any of Tory councillors you call to ask questions are indeed Tory councillors

If you’re Tory Bob Neill, the answer is (c). (And yes, they were all local Tory councillors he knows).

Hattip: Duncan Borrowman

Posted in News | Tagged bob neill and ken livingstone | 4 Comments

Greening Islington

By Mark Pack | Tue 21st November 2006 - 10:12 am

Yesterday the BBC ran a TV story on how Lib Dems in Islington are greening the borough. All the Council offices, libraries, leisure facilities and streetlights now run off renewable electricity and Islington’s vehicle fleet is getting greener each year as vehicles are converted to run on electricity, LPG or biodiesel.

The planning rules have also been strengthened so as to promote energy efficiency, cycle parking, water saving and green roofs.

The latest initiative is wind turbines on Council offices.

You can watch the story on the BBC website.

Posted in News | Tagged islington council | 1 Comment

Stephen Williams goes on YouTube

By Mark Pack | Mon 20th November 2006 - 6:50 pm

As part of the third annual Anti-Bullying Week, Lib Dem MP Stephen Williams has done a clip for YouTube about the problems of homophobic bullying:

Posted in Lib Dem TV and News | Tagged homophobia and stephen williams | Leave a comment

More Labour hypocrisy

By Mark Pack | Sun 19th November 2006 - 4:12 pm

Fresh from the news about Labour Mayor Steve Bullock both praising and condemning local swimming pool campaigners, we have news from Blaydon of Labour campaigning against local council parking policies. No prizes for guessing which party it is that runs the local council…

Posted in News | Tagged blaydon and steve bullock | Leave a comment

How well did the Democrats really do?

By Mark Pack | Sat 18th November 2006 - 10:05 pm

Unlike the UK, aggregate vote share figures across the US are rarely reported. But there have now been some unofficial calculations, which put the vote share in House of Representative elections at:

Democrats 51%
Republicans 47%

(Figure from MyDD.com, which also has more details.)

Posted in LDVUSA | 3 Comments

Conservative councillor joins Lib Dems

By Mark Pack | Fri 17th November 2006 - 5:54 pm

A Conservative councillor in Mole Valley has switched to the Liberal Democrats. One of her reasons particularly caught my eye:

“Mr Cameron does not seem to be following up his rather vague aspirations with any solid policies.”

Who knows, perhaps it is because he is so busy changing his clothes?

Posted in News | Tagged david cameron and defections | Leave a comment

By-election results: Tories fail against Lib Dems

By Mark Pack | Fri 17th November 2006 - 5:47 pm

Amongst the council by-elections held yesterday, there were two in Lib Dem held wards in southern England where – if the Tories were really making inroads into Lib Dem support – the Tories should have been scoring big swings, if not wins, from the Lib Dems.

The actual result? Two Lib Dem holds with increased majorities:

Cambridge City, Trumpington
LD Andy Blackhurst 858 (51.4; +5.9), Con 618 (37.0; +1.3), Lab 109 (6.5;
-2.6), Green 85 (5.1; -4.6).
Swing: 2.3% Tory to Lib Dem

Reading UA, Tilehurst
LD Ricky Duveen 919 (47.8; +6.4), Con 586 (30.5; -0.1), Lab 317 (16.5;
-5.7), Green 79 (4.1; -1.6), The Roman Party 21 …

Posted in Council by-elections | Tagged andy blackhurst and ricky duveen | 3 Comments

New Lib Dem TV broadcast: Brown, Cameron and Iraq

By Mark Pack | Thu 16th November 2006 - 4:23 pm

Posted in Lib Dem TV and Online politics | Tagged david cameron, gordon brown and iraq | Leave a comment

One Mayor, one pool, two views

By Mark Pack | Mon 13th November 2006 - 1:39 pm

There has been a successful campaign in Lewisham to save the Ladywell swimming pool.

The (Labour) Mayor, Steve Bullock, had these lovely words to say about the campaigners:

“I feel the passionate and enthusiastic campaign by Save Ladywell Pool, although challenging at times, is a great example of how local people can get their views heard. Their work is an example to all communities and shows how people can get together and make a real difference.”

What a shame then that on the same day as these words were uttered, the latest edition of Time Out appeared, with these words from the very same …

Posted in News | Tagged lewisham council and steve bullock | 1 Comment

Voting machines: a warning from the US

By Mark Pack | Sun 12th November 2006 - 10:08 am

There have been lots of tales from America about problems with electronic voting machines in the mid-term elections, but my favourite example is this one – where a candidate was recorded as getting zero votes even though he’d gone and voted for himself.

Two things are common across many of the stories – the absence of a proper paper-based audit trail to check things if the machine comes up with a suspicious result and the reluctance on the part of officials running elections to believe their machines may have got it wrong. They are both important factors to look out …

Posted in LDVUSA and News | Tagged electronic voting | 4 Comments

BBC exposes Tory MP’s links to funding scandal

By Mark Pack | Sat 11th November 2006 - 7:50 pm

J Kirkbride The role of the Midlands Industrial Council in funding Conservative party activity has been bubbling away as a controversy for some time.

In essence, by giving money to the MIC rather than directly to the Conservative party, it has allowed big donors to remain anonymous. The MIC in turn, after receiving these anonymous donations, funds Conservative campaigning. After public pressure, they’ve published a one-off list of their currently active members – but won’t say who else has given money in the past or that they’ll publish names of new donors in the …

Posted in News | Tagged iain dale and midlands industrial council | 13 Comments

Lib Dems come from fourth to win in Redbridge

By Mark Pack | Fri 10th November 2006 - 7:57 am

Last night Irfan Mustafa came from fourth place to win a safe Labour seat in Clementswood ward (London Borough of Redbridge).

The result was: Lib Dem 904, Labour 715, Tory 377, Independent 65, Green 49, British Public Party 48.

In May (only five months ago!) the result was (taking top vote for each party): Labour 1,424, Tory 477, British Public Party 315, Lib Dem 307, Green 129.

As with the recent good by-election result against Labour in Manchester, this result suggests that the hugely increased levels of support amongst ethnic minority communities which the Iraq war brought the party show no signs of fading.

Posted in Council by-elections and News | Tagged irfan mustafa and redbridge | 8 Comments

Defections from Labour in Manchester

By Mark Pack | Thu 9th November 2006 - 10:42 pm

Read about it in Asian Image:

It is always hard to sever your ties with a political party you have supported but the way this Government has been behaving over so many issues relating to civil liberties and human rights made that decision much easier.

Posted in News | 2 Comments

Cartoons by email

By Mark Pack | Thu 9th November 2006 - 6:16 pm

You can now sign up to be notified by email each time a new cartoon is added to the Liberal Democrat website. The cartoons appear in the e-postcard section and you can sign up to the emails on the Get Email News page (tick option number 2).

Posted in News | 1 Comment

Online conference registration now available

By Mark Pack | Wed 8th November 2006 - 7:01 pm

You can now register online for the party’s next spring UK-wide (federal) conference. It’s being held on 2-4 March 2007 in Harrogate and registration information is here.

Posted in Conference and News | Leave a comment

Op-eds

AI at the crossroads: two stories, one warning (Sean Worrell)
Observations of an Expat: The American Vote (Tom Arms)
Burnham has left a gap on tax. We should run through it. (Tom Reeve)
Should the Liberal Democrats support “None of the Above”? (Samuel Jackson)
Extending the school day: A catalyst for economic growth (Edward Marsh)

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Vince Cable writes: The rebirth of council housing

An early win for affordable housing – now let councils build

William Wallace writes: The case for higher taxes

ALDC’s By-Election Report 09.07.26

Author Archives: Mark Pack

Chester Conservative quits

David Cameron: one today

Fourth Conservative Parliamentary candidate in trouble

What will Liberal Democrats be doing at Christmas?

David Cameron’s environmental record

Homophobia amongst North Norfolk’s Tories?

Double Tory candidate trouble

Cameron joins the Liberal Democrats

Will Ian Lewis shortly be eating a hat?

Newcastle: Labour lose seat to Lib Dems; Tories 4th

More Tory trouble on party funding

Conservatives keep their funding secret – again

Nick Clegg on the Freedom Bill

STV petition

What happens when you don’t have policies?

Chairing a meeting, Conservative style

Greening Islington

Stephen Williams goes on YouTube

More Labour hypocrisy

How well did the Democrats really do?

Conservative councillor joins Lib Dems

By-election results: Tories fail against Lib Dems

New Lib Dem TV broadcast: Brown, Cameron and Iraq

One Mayor, one pool, two views

Voting machines: a warning from the US

BBC exposes Tory MP’s links to funding scandal

Lib Dems come from fourth to win in Redbridge

Defections from Labour in Manchester

Cartoons by email

Online conference registration now available

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Vince Cable writes: The rebirth of council housing

An early win for affordable housing – now let councils build

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ALDC’s By-Election Report 09.07.26

Author Archives: Mark Pack

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