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

Opinion: My Liberal Democrat star of 2013

By Mark Pack | Tue 31st December 2013 - 1:40 pm

Ahead of both the 2005 and 2015 general elections there was a key Liberal Democrat Parliamentary by-election win which massively altered the political atmosphere ahead of that general election – motivating activists, persuading media commentators and influencing the public. One was Brent East in 2003, the other Eastleigh in 2013.

The impact of both is all the clearer if you consider what the impact of missing out on the gain in 2003 or slumping to defeat in 2013 would have meant.

Ten years apart, the first showed how the party could gain urban seats off Labour, with some huge Labour majorities actually …

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Mark Pack

Opinion: e-voting coming back to life?

By Mark Pack | Mon 30th December 2013 - 10:36 am

The announcement last month by House of Commons Speaker John Bercow of a commission on digital democracy has kicked the debate over e-voting back to life in the UK.

For many years it has been a rather odd debate in the UK because, all too rarely, this is an area where (back when Labour was in power) large sums of money were spent on extensive pilot schemes before, based on the evidence gathered, the idea was dropped. It is how policymaking should work: have an idea, test it and then make a decision based on the evidence.

Yet the …

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Posted in Op-eds | Tagged | 16 Comments
Mark Pack

Opinion: California Governor’s success is a promising sign for Nick Clegg’s political approach

By Mark Pack | Mon 18th November 2013 - 12:42 pm

Jerry Brown, American pioneer of small-donor funded, technologically innovative, grassroots Presidential campaigns (see 1992 and his use of freephone numbers), three times failed Presidential candidate and former Governor of California, has had a remarkably successful last few years – thanks to be re-elected as Governor nearly thirty years after he last left the post.

On a range of progressive issues, such as climate change and immigration reform, Brown has been using his power as the Governor of a state whose economy would be the 12th largest in the world if it were an independent country. Progress on them may be stalled …

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Mark Pack

Opinion: Secrecy, federal committees and a lack of democracy

By Mark Pack | Tue 12th November 2013 - 8:47 am

meetingNearly all the debates about Liberal Democrat federal committees and democracy hinge on who the electorate for committee elections should be – conference reps or all party members?

However these debates miss a big problem, which is simply that the electorate, whoever it is, knows very little about the performance of incumbents. Democracy isn’t just about the right people having the vote, it’s about them being able to cast their votes in a meaningful way.

If you don’t know what people have done, it is hard to hold them to account.

Currently there …

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Posted in Op-eds | Tagged , and | 8 Comments
Mark Pack

Opinion: About those low Conference voting figures…

By Mark Pack | Thu 19th September 2013 - 8:53 am
When 444 votes were cast in the 50p top tax rate debate and 413 in the nuclear power vote, some comments were made about these appearing to be low figures compared to past conferences.
However the rush to judgement on them were flawed for three reasons.
First, there were rather more votes cast in the Trident debate (550 – thanks to the get out the vote operation by the party leadership not misfiring that time.)
Second, attendance at federal conferences is always lower in Scotland than when it is in southern England, reflecting the relative travel distances for the bulk of the

…

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Posted in Op-eds | Tagged , and | 34 Comments
Mark Pack

Opinion: Regulate more lobbying and less campaigning: how to improve The Transparency of Lobbying, non-Party Campaigning, and Trade Union Administration Bill

By Mark Pack | Thu 5th September 2013 - 10:30 am

Neither the current rules regulating lobbying nor those controlling so-called ‘third party’ campaigning (i.e. by someone other than candidates or their parties) are extensive enough. Both need improving.

With lobbying, the case for better regulation is easy to make: pick a scandal, any scandal.

With third party campaigning, the loopholes and relaxed existing rules are less obvious because, so far, they have either been largely under-exploited or have been made use of by ‘good guys’ such as Hope Not Hate. Yet the very same generous rules that let Hope Not Hate explicitly campaigning for people not to vote for the BNP could …

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Mark Pack

Interim Peers Panel reform – missing the main question?

By Mark Pack | Mon 2nd September 2013 - 10:33 am

Nestling near the top of the second page of the Federal Executive’s consultation paper about how the party’s new members of the House of Lords are appointed (pdf) is a little three letter word which is central to the issue.

It talks about the party’s current Interim Peers Panel system, whereby conference representatives elect a group of names – of which I was one last time round – and to which are added a group of people by dint of previous offices they have held, such as former MPs.

That little word is “can”, as in this is …

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Posted in Party policy and internal matters | Tagged | 3 Comments
Mark Pack

Opinion: Syria – I know what’s wrong; working out what’s right is rather harder

By Mark Pack | Thu 29th August 2013 - 11:54 am

It is easy to work out what I disagree with on Syria.

The absurd politics of those on the left who have never lifted the smallest placard in protest again Assad’s wide scale murders but break out a garage-full the moment there is a whiff of US involvement in something.

Or those who talk about Syria with reference to Iraq but without references too to countries such as the Ivory Coast or Sierra Leone, where military intervention worked. Or without reference to countries such as the former Yugoslavia where the problem was not that military intervention took place but that it took …

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Posted in Op-eds | Tagged | 22 Comments
Mark Pack

Opinion: Typing – an important skill that we neither teach nor require

By Mark Pack | Fri 2nd August 2013 - 6:30 pm

Recently I was sat in a GP’s surgery waiting for him to type out a prescription for me. Until that point I had been nothing but impressed with his patience and knowledge. Then I saw how painfully slowly he attacked the keyboard, poking at it with a few select fingers as if it was too hot to touch, swiftly withdrawing his fingers to safe distance after each quick poke at a key.

The prescription that rolled off the computer was accurate, so what was the problem save for a few extra seconds passed in chit chat whilst he did the fingers …

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Posted in Op-eds | Tagged , and | 35 Comments
Mark Pack

Labour’s MP for Tottenham tells residents: ‘wait till September for help’

By Mark Pack | Mon 22nd July 2013 - 12:54 pm

Some MPs rightly get annoyed when the press and public talk about Parliamentary recess being “holiday” for they continue to work hard in their constituencies during recess.

Labour’s MP for Tottenham David Lammy (aka the man who got away over his expenses thanks to his second home claims coming out before the media got interested in the topic), however, is just the sort of MP who gives those others a bad name.

Here is what he emailed residents on 12th July:

Due to the parliamentary recess, my next advice surgery will be on Friday 13th September.

If you want to see your MP …

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Posted in News | Tagged | 17 Comments
Mark Pack

Opinion: 20 years of going nowhere, Liberal Democrat gender balance in council elections

By Mark Pack | Wed 10th July 2013 - 11:55 am

Twenty years of progress, followed by twenty years of stalling. That’s the overall picture of Liberal Democrat (and before that Alliance / Liberal Party) progress towards gender equality at local government elections, whether measured in terms of candidates or people elected.

Looking at local elections in England, a mere 20% of the Liberal Party’s candidates were female in 1973 and the figure was even lower, 18%, amongst those elected. By 1991 both figures had risen to 34%. Since then, however, the figures have bounced up and down around a long-term flat trend, with both hitting 30% in the latest figures for …

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Mark Pack

Would-be Labour candidate attacks Unite’s “autocratic monopoly” and role in Lewisham and Haringey selections

By Mark Pack | Sun 7th July 2013 - 9:15 am

Last night a would-be Labour Parliamentary candidate, who contested the Hornsey & Wood Green selection, hit out on Twitter at the “autocratic monopoly” produced by Unite’s influence on selections. Mandy Richards singled out selections in Hornsey & Wood Green and Lewisham, arguing that they have not been getting the media attention they deserve and that Unite’s influence is blocking a “progressive Labour agenda”.

Twitter - Mandy4PPC_2015- complaint about Unite

Twitter - Mandy4PPC_2015- Unite autrocratic monopoly

In Hornsey & Wood Green the selection was won by …

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Mark Pack

Have you got the new Lib Dem poster?

By Mark Pack | Mon 24th June 2013 - 8:58 am

There’s a good reason why time and again people who produce really successful campaigning literature talk about the importance of having good photos. It’s because communicating a message visually can be extremely effective. Yet when it comes to what the party is achieving in government, the answer used to be produce slabs of text or highly inconsistent leaflets.

That’s why last year I produced an infographic instead (and kudos to the party, and the policy team in particular, for starting to use infographics themselves more widely since, partly inspired by mine).

Now there’s a 2013 version, put into …

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Mark Pack

Opinion: The best government team you’ve not heard of

By Mark Pack | Tue 18th June 2013 - 11:58 am

Switch_off_internet_in_case_of_political_dissentThe best performing team in government is also one you’ve probably not heard of. It’s the Government Digital Service, who have been revolutionising central government’s use of the internet – providing the sort of excellent and reliable new systems that have countries round the world scrambling to copy them, whilst managing to hit timescales, keep to budgets and avoid bugs in a way that puts most government IT projects to shame. Better services and lower costs – it’s a winning combination that whoever is in power after 2015 will need to …

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Mark Pack

Opinion: Adonis’s complaint – Ashdown was not mind-numbingly stupid with the memory span of a goldfish

By Mark Pack | Thu 16th May 2013 - 9:51 am

Andrew Adonis’s account of the days after the public voted in a hung Parliament in 2010 have already received a rightful savaging by Andrew Stunell. Given that we already know the Mandelson/Balls preparation for coalition talks with the Liberal Democrats was a quick cup of tea, you might think that not even Andrew Adonis’s account could make Labour’s preparation for a hung Parliament look even more amateurish or non-existent. Yet his 5 Days In May manages that.

His book kicks off with a complaint from Peter Mandelson that his attempt to sound out Paddy Ashdown on a

…

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

An open letter to Jeremy Browne MP…Part 2: Problems at the Home Office

By Mark Pack | Mon 22nd April 2013 - 10:25 am

Dear Jeremy,

In part 1 I explained why the Interception of Communications Commissioner is a failed regulator and one the Home Office should be fixing, yet your civil servants have been reluctant to do so. That should give a pause for thought about the proposals Home Office civil servants keep on pushing to extend the ability of the government to snoop on what we do online.

So too should the way in which the Home Office regularly changes its views of what counts as being in the national interest or vital for the fight against crime, and indeed makes outlandish claims …

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Mark Pack

An open letter to Jeremy Browne MP on civil liberties… Part 1: The failed regulator

By Mark Pack | Sun 21st April 2013 - 10:00 am

Dear Jeremy

I doubt that in amongst all the ludicrously large number of issues that pass across the desk of a minister, and a Home Office one no less, you will have noticed a small victory I scored over the Home Office recently.

But I hope you’ll give a pause for thought to the implications of the ruling the Information Commissioner made in my favour over the Home Office (decision notice reference FS50469527).

Partly it’s because of what it says about the never-quite-dead proposals for a huge expansion of monitoring of our online activity. Partly it’s because of what the case reveals …

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Mark Pack

Opinion: A radical approach to welfare – forget changing benefits

By Mark Pack | Sat 13th April 2013 - 11:47 am

The word ‘radical’ is to welfare reform what a pot of paint is to a wall full of cracks. The less you really know what to do to fix things, the more you slap it about all over the place in the hope that it will cover up things.

When you peer carefully at the detail of what is said after the roaring demand for radical reforms, you see what usually follows is either an absence of quite what form the radical action should take (‘radical, radical, we must be radical; just please don’t ask me how’) or simply by a …

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Posted in Op-eds | Tagged | 19 Comments
Mark Pack

What the Liberal Democrats believe

By Mark Pack | Sat 30th March 2013 - 5:30 pm

“Tell me more about what the Liberal Democrats believe”. Whether it’s a possible new member, a potential council candidate or a new office volunteer asking, I’ve always found over the years that one of the trickier questions to answer. Not because of the inherent question, but rather because of the paucity of materials available to conveniently answer it.

There’s always been a simple short 1 or 2 sentence answer to hand (such as the slogan of the day or an extract from the preamble to the party’s constitution) or a really long answer available, such as Conrad Russell’s superb An …

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Mark Pack

Opinion: Are you a man?

By Mark Pack | Tue 12th March 2013 - 10:55 am

menAre you a man? Have you been or might you be on a fringe meeting panel at Liberal Democrat conference? If the answer to both is yes, I’d like your help…

At the Spring conference just gone in Brighton, I nearly ended up being a speaker on an all-male panel – and one taking place on International Women’s Day no less. The subject – technology and politics – is one where there are a good few female experts in the party, and it was only Olly Grender’s last minute addition which saved my blushes from Mark Thompson’s quite reasonable intention to turn up and put us all on the spot about what was an all-male panel.

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Mark Pack

Inquiries into Rennard allegations must be as public as possible

By Mark Pack | Tue 26th February 2013 - 10:55 am

The party’s investigations into allegations against its members are traditionally internal, confidential affairs. There are good reasons for this, particularly as confidentiality can be necessary for people to be willing to given evidence and as the simple existence of an allegation can kill someone’s political career, even if the allegations are subsequently found to be groundless.

They are often so confidential, in fact, that the last time I was asked to provide evidence for an inquiry, I did not know what the precise allegations were, who was investigating them, who the range of people being investigated were, whether or not the …

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Posted in Op-eds | Tagged and | 8 Comments
Mark Pack

How Ofsted outperforms the Department for Education in the email stakes

By Mark Pack | Wed 20th February 2013 - 5:55 pm

Yesterday I blogged about how only a third of emailed newsletters and circulars sent out by the Department for Education to schools and teachers are read by the recipients.

I also mentioned that you could choose who to blame for the low readership rate:

Who is to blame for this? If nothing else I suspect these figures are a good test of your political instincts: are you already thinking the blame lies with Michael Gove and the Department for Education for not making their messages more compelling or with the teachers who aren’t reading them in greater numbers?

One way of helping …

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Mark Pack

Two-thirds of email newsletters sent to teachers and schools by the Department for Education are not read

By Mark Pack | Tue 19th February 2013 - 10:55 am

Email inboxOnly a third of emailed newsletters and circulars sent out by the Department for Education to schools and teachers are read by the recipients according to new figures I have secured following a Freedom of Information request to the Department.

In 2012 the Department sent out 148,182 such emails, with their systems recording 49,504 of them as having  been read at least once (33%).

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Mark Pack

What Google reveals about the current state of play in Eastleigh

By Mark Pack | Sun 17th February 2013 - 5:34 pm

The search results thrown up by Google often provide a neat little insight into what angles of a story are dominating coverage and people’s attention. The angles that get the most prominent coverage and the most interaction and responses are the ones that rise to the top of the search results. So what do they tell us about the current state of play in the Eastleigh by-election?

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Posted in News and Parliamentary by-elections | Tagged , , , , , and | 7 Comments
Mark Pack

The real political battle isn’t Conservative vs Labour or Cameron vs Miliband

By Mark Pack | Mon 11th February 2013 - 11:53 am

Diversion sign - photo courtesy of Michael Casey on Flickr. Some rights reserved, see http://www.flickr.com/photos/michaelcasey/2959557643/Skim the political news – or brace yourself and watch some of festival of braying adults that is PMQs – and you could easily think that British politics is primarily a contest between Cameron and Miliband, Conservative and Labour, to be top dog. You could – and you would be wrong. It’s a diversion from where the real action is.

The real political contest is both elsewhere and not one single contest. It is not about Conservative versus Labour, except by incidental outcome.

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Posted in Op-eds | Tagged | 13 Comments
Mark Pack

Maria Hutchings, Eastleigh Conservative candidate, plays hide and seek with the media

By Mark Pack | Mon 11th February 2013 - 8:50 am

Norman LamontOne of my favourite moments from the 1997 general election campaign came when I was stood on a street corner in Harrogate, talking to a report about the challenge from Lib Dem candidate Phil Willis, who was trying to take the seat from the Conservatives. Suddenly, the journalist looked over my shoulder, muttered ‘excuse me’ and ran off down the street, partially dignified, chasing a van that had driven past behind me.

The reason? The van was that of the Conservative candidate, Norman Lamont, who had been spending the whole campaign trying to avoid talking to the press. The result? Much of the press coverage was dominated by stories of journalists trying to track him down around the constituency.

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Posted in News and Parliamentary by-elections | Tagged , , and | 1 Comment
Mark Pack

+++ Neck and neck: first Eastleigh constituency poll

By Mark Pack | Thu 7th February 2013 - 6:46 pm

That 3 point gap is within the margin of error on the poll, and so it is, as they say in the US about such results, a statistical dead-heat.

What is clear is that this is a contest between Liberal Democrats and Conservatives. Nigel Farage was right it would seem to back out of fighting the seat – and Labour too are clearly out of it in Eastleigh.

The Labour vote share is particularly interesting as we’ll see how well the party can do at squeezing a clearly third-place Labour in a Parliamentary by-election. The pre-2010 record is of course very good …

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Posted in News and Parliamentary by-elections | Tagged , and | 47 Comments
Mark Pack

Majority back same-sex marriage

By Mark Pack | Sun 3rd February 2013 - 2:49 pm

Wedding ringsFrom the polling published this weekend:

Would you support or oppose changing the law to allow same-sex couples to marry?
Support: 55%
Oppose: 36%

Amongst Conservative voters the results are 44% – 49% (which is a statistical dead heat, when you remember to factor in the  margin of error).

Interestingly, the majority support comes despite the lead-up to the question being a tadge inaccurate:

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Posted in Polls | Tagged , , and | 46 Comments
Mark Pack

New university data shows everyone was wrong about tuition fees

By Mark Pack | Thu 31st January 2013 - 8:25 am

May I introduce you to my latest graph? It’s based on the new data just published about university applications in England and compares the application rate for university places from the most deprived parts of the country with those from the least deprived. As you might expect, the least deprived areas see a higher university application rate than the most deprived. But look what’s happened to that gap:

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Posted in News | Tagged and | 80 Comments
Mark Pack

What do the academics say? Being local works

By Mark Pack | Thu 24th January 2013 - 10:25 am

Academic cap and gown - Some rights reserved by NoDivisionWelcome to the latest in our occasional series highlighting interesting findings from academic research. Today – it’s the effect of being local on a candidate’s election chances, courtesy of an article in Political Geography :

In this paper, we the British General Election of 2010 and the British Election Survey, together with geographical data from Ordnance Survey and Royal Mail, to test the hypothesis that candidate distance matters in

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Posted in What do the academics say? | 4 Comments
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