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

You’ve got to love Australian election lawyers

By Mark Pack | Sun 19th December 2010 - 3:25 pm

Whoever wrote Section 245(1) of the 1918 Commonwealth Electoral Act, I salute you.

PenguinsNot only did you add in a provision that the legal obligation to vote in Australian elections does not apply to people who are not qualified to vote, you also added in a provision that being dead is a legally acceptable reason not to vote.

A triumph of legal generosity.

And now, excuse me whilst I go and read Part XVII, “Special Provisions Relating To The Polling In Antarctica”. (I want to find out how to become an Assistant Antarctic …

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Posted in Election law | Tagged | 3 Comments
Mark Pack

Transport for London offers up more data for free

By Mark Pack | Sun 19th December 2010 - 9:55 am

Over the summer we reported the welcome news that Transport for London was making more of its data available for others to reuse:

It’s a smart move because it means the emphasis on working out how to make best use of the data shifts from TfL to the wider commercial sector. That means people can experiment (and fail) in a way that is much harder when politicians, media (and yes, bloggers) are looking over your shoulder waiting to shout “Waste of public money!” if an idea doesn’t pan out. It also means that Transport for London can concentrate on what it is (or should be) good at – running transport services, whilst letting those who are good at developing data services and marrying up different commercial ideas can do what they’re good at.

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Posted in London | Tagged and | 6 Comments
Mark Pack

How to get Lib Dem Voice by email

By Mark Pack | Sun 19th December 2010 - 8:55 am

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 | 1 Comment
Mark Pack

Big Society vs Community Politics: grounds for agreement, grounds for disagreement

By Mark Pack | Sat 18th December 2010 - 12:24 pm

David Cameron’s recent speech laying out his vision of the Big Society provides a yardstick to judge it against traditional Liberal Democrat (and before that Liberal) beliefs in community politics.

The underlying motivation for the Big Society, as expressed by Cameron, could have come from one of the many Lib Dem / Liberal pamphlets or articles about community politics:

It comes from the belief that over many decades this country has become too centralised, too bureaucratic and too top-down.

And this is not just inefficient and overly-bureaucratic but also has an insidious cultural effect, because it robs people of responsibility.

Regaining this shared

…

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

The Saturday debate: What should be done about banker bonuses?

By Mark Pack | Sat 18th December 2010 - 8:55 am

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

Bonus for bankers are in the news once again, with talks involving the banks not yet reaching any agreement and with Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg keeping up the political pressure, telling the Financial Times:

“The banks should not be under any illusion this government cannot stand idly by. It is wholly untenable to have millions of people making sacrifices in their living standards, only to see the banks getting away scot-free…”

Mr Clegg, the son of a banker, said that he wanted

…

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Posted in Op-eds | Tagged , and | 58 Comments
Mark Pack

Six senior Kenyans face charges over deaths of 1,200

By Mark Pack | Fri 17th December 2010 - 1:26 pm

In another important step for the International Criminal Court (ICC), on Wednesday its prosecutor announced charges against six high-profile Kenyans, including the country’s Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister Uhuru Kenyatta. The charges all relate to the violence that killed 1,200 people after disputed elections in 2007:

BBC East Africa correspondent Will Ross says in recent days there has been a degree of panic among some members of the usually untouchable political elite.

Most Kenyans feel these prosecutions are vital in order to undermine the deeply rooted culture of impunity, our correspondent says.

The key question now is whether those accused will hand

…

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

Returning Officer pay was increased without any idea what it would cost

By Mark Pack | Fri 17th December 2010 - 12:27 pm

A significant increase in the pay of some Returning Officers was quietly introduced by the then Labour government ahead of this year’s general election but no estimate was made as to what the costs would be of rule changes that made the pay more generous.

In March, the Ministry of Justice issued its Returning Officers’ Expenses Guidance Notes Parliamentary Elections (Great Britain) which included, in Section 7.7, an increase in the payments made to Returning Officers for supervising more than one constituency. Previously the payments (worked out on a sum per entry on the electoral register) were tapered if a Returning Officer covered …

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Posted in Election law and News | Tagged | 2 Comments
Mark Pack

Thinking of standing in May?

By Mark Pack | Fri 17th December 2010 - 8:55 am

If you are hoping to get elected in one of the elections due in May (or, very wisely, are already thinking further ahead), then hopefully you’ve found many of the posts we’ve run over the last few months useful in giving you ideas.

Here’s a quick recap of five of the main posts worth (re)reading over Christmas to look for ideas and tips:

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Posted in News | Tagged | 8 Comments
Mark Pack

Nick Harvey outlines the UK’s objectives in Afghanistan

By Mark Pack | Thu 16th December 2010 - 9:43 pm

Minister of State for the Armed Forces and Liberal Democrat MP Nick Harvey set out the government’s objectives in Afghanistan in a speech he gave during his visit to Denmark this week. He made clear the limits to what the government is now seeking to achieve:

We do not seek a perfect Afghanistan, but one able to maintain its own security and prevent the return of Al-Qaeda.

This is primarily a mission of national security.

We are neither colonisers nor occupiers.

We are there under United Nations Security Council endorsement and at the invitation of the Afghan Government.

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Posted in News | Tagged , , and | 21 Comments
Mark Pack

The IFS’s verdict on the Pupil Premium

By Mark Pack | Thu 16th December 2010 - 12:24 pm

At the start of this week details of the Pupil Premium to help the education of the most disadvantaged children were published. The Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) has now run its eye over those details and come up with its verdict:

Pupil premium: simple and transparent financial incentive

The Government’s chosen pupil premium is simple, amounting to £430 per pupil eligible for free school meals no matter which local authority children live in. The Government originally proposed a pupil premium that would have varied in generosity across local authorities, been relatively complex to understand, and gone against the Government’s stated

…

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Posted in News | Tagged , and | 40 Comments
Mark Pack

Ending detention of children for immigration purposes: details and dates published

By Mark Pack | Thu 16th December 2010 - 7:53 am

Today (as predicted) Nick Clegg is announcing the details of how the government will end detention of children for immigration purposes.

Since the government review started on 1 June, the number in detention has dropped sharply – 78 compared to 594 in the same period under Labour in 2009. Now the government is committed both to ensuring that no children are in detention over Christmas and that the policy is completely abolished by May. As previously announced, the family wing at Yarl’s Wood being shut. (More details here.)

Tom Brake (Co-Chair of the Liberal Democrat Parliamentary Committee on Home Affairs …

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Posted in News | Tagged , and | 52 Comments
Mark Pack

Doubling your traffic from Facebook: how best to integrate Twitter, Facebook and your website

By Mark Pack | Wed 15th December 2010 - 8:55 am

Many Liberal Democrat councillors and campaigners have both a Twitter account and a Facebook profile alongside their blog or website. Linking the three together efficiently can greatly increase the political impact of them individually, especially as many people find that Twitter is one of the best ways of driving traffic and Facebook one of the best places to get comments, whilst it’s on their website that is more convenient for longer or more detailed content. With each having a different role, how best then to put all three together?

The basic option that many people go for is to have a …

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Posted in Online politics | Tagged , , and | Leave a comment
Mark Pack

Barack Obama should be more like Nick Clegg

By Mark Pack | Tue 14th December 2010 - 7:55 pm

A Republican urging Barack Obama to be more like Nick Clegg is not a combination often seen, but that is what Michael Gerson argues in his Washington Post column, in a trans-Atlantic continuation of the debate over what counts as economic fairness:

Addressing the actual causes of inequality should be common ground for the center-left and center-right – and politically appealing to American voters, who are generally more concerned about opportunity than income equality. A mobility agenda might include measures to discourage teen pregnancy; increase the rewards for work; encourage wealth-building and entrepreneurship; reform preschool programs; improve infant and child health;

…

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Posted in News | Tagged , , and | 31 Comments
Mark Pack

Improving schools systems: the international lessons

By Mark Pack | Tue 14th December 2010 - 8:55 am

How does a poor school system become good or a good school system become excellent? Those are the questions asked in a recently published McKinsey review of twenty school systems around the world, including both developed and developing countries.

In school systems where there have been significant improvements in performance, McKinsey found that these were often achieved in six years or less from the start of the changes. In other words it is possible for a government to bring about improvements in time for the public to see the benefits before the next election. However, continuity amongst key educational officials (including politicians) is frequently beneficial, with improving systems usually having their educational leaders in place for long periods of time.

Many of those improvements were, according to the McKinsey analysis, brought about without significant changes in the structure of education systems or in the resources put in.

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

Localism and council funding: today’s announcements

By Mark Pack | Mon 13th December 2010 - 6:21 pm

Two big pieces of local government news today – more powers and less money.

On the more powers front, here are some of the highlights from the Localism Bill:

  • A General Power of Competence for Councils – in other words, councils will in future be able to do what they think is right for their area, rather than only be able to take action in areas laid down by central government
  • Letting councils return to the Committee System if they wish, and introducing the option for more Directly Elected Mayors
  • Abolition of the Standards Board
  • Giving local people the power to veto “excessive” council tax increases
  • Devolve

…

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Posted in Local government and News | Tagged and | 30 Comments
Mark Pack

The verdict of Liberal Democrat voters so far

By Mark Pack | Mon 13th December 2010 - 8:55 am

“What annoyed me most was that they had intelligent policies and were not dogmatic, so I thought ‘how could you possibly go into coalition with the Tories?'”

That quote, from a voter in a Liberal Democrat held seat, neatly summarises a view that is both held passionately by many Liberal Democrat voters but also irritates many Liberal Democrat members – for the obvious riposte is, “How can you both say we shouldn’t be dogmatic and also insist we rule out one party regardless of circumstances?”

It comes from a set of focus groups commissioned by Conservative peer Lord Ashcroft, along with two opinion …

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Posted in Polls | Tagged | 23 Comments
Mark Pack

Parliament starts publishing details of rulings on MPs

By Mark Pack | Sun 12th December 2010 - 7:55 pm

A small step-forward for accountability – the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standard’s recommendation from before the election for the details of his rulings to be published online has recently been implemented, along with a couple of years of archives. You can now read the rulings here.

Posted in News and Parliament | 2 Comments
Mark Pack

What Jo Grimond wrote…

By Mark Pack | Sun 12th December 2010 - 11:50 am

Jo Grimond, the former Liberal Party leader who famously promised to lead the party towards the sound of gunfire, wrote the following back in 1979 – yet it echoes many contemporary themes:

“Looking around London it is uglier, dirtier, more expensively and more incompetently run than it was ten years ago. Many of the people in the Underground railway look like refugees from a prison camp. The standard of life may be statistically rising but it is difficult to discern greater well-being in either the homes or faces of most people. A certain mulish worry seems a prevalent expression. Yet their …

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Posted in Op-eds | Tagged | 27 Comments
Mark Pack

So, what did Chris Huhne achieve in Cancun?

By Mark Pack | Sun 12th December 2010 - 8:55 am

After the hype and disappointment over Copenhagen, the climate change talks in Cancun were also going to be much lower profile – a gentle attempt to have some successful preparatory work and build up momentum ahead of the next round of talks. However, with the tuition fees vote this week, Chris Huhne’s presence at the talks got rather more publicity than usual. But what actually happened at the talks?

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Posted in News | Tagged and | 16 Comments
Mark Pack

Is there no end to this outbreak of health and safety sanity?

By Mark Pack | Sat 11th December 2010 - 3:50 pm

The stories about legal accuracy and common sense when it comes to snow clearing just keep on breaking out this year:

CLAIMS that ‘elf and safety’ rules mean you could be sued if someone slips on the pavement after you have cleared it of snow have been dismissed by Taunton-based lawyers. (Somerset County Gazette)

and

Alex Salmond urged people to clear snow and ice outside their homes. He said: “There is no truth whatsoever that there is any risk of being sued if you clear the pavement outside your premises or house. (Daily Record)

Both of which follow the outbreak a few days ago …

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Posted in News | Tagged | 6 Comments
Mark Pack

Five of the best political adverts: here’s the full list

By Mark Pack | Sat 11th December 2010 - 10:25 am

During this week, we’ve run a series of posts on five of the best political adverts. If you’ve missed any part of the list, here it is in full along with links to the ads and posts:

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Mark Pack

The Saturday debate: Should federal committees be elected by all party members?

By Mark Pack | Sat 11th December 2010 - 8:55 am

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

Key party committees such as the Federal Executive and the Federal Policy Committee have a large block of members elected in a postal ballot every two years by the party’s federal conference representatives.* These directly elected members sit alongside committee members such as MPs elected by the Parliamentary Party in the Commons.

The arguments in favour of having federal conference representatives rather than party members as the electorate have tended to focus on practicality (the cost would be much higher to have all …

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Posted in Op-eds and Party policy and internal matters | Tagged | 25 Comments
Mark Pack

The Met Police have an unusual problem

By Mark Pack | Fri 10th December 2010 - 10:25 am

I suspect there are many parts of the public sector which wished they had this problem:

Underspending continues to be an issue in the management of the capital programme, although unused funds can often be carried forward through reserves to support projects at a future date.

Part of the issue is large projects slipping, with the Met’s response to this being:

Agreeing an ‘opening’ programme in excess of available funding in the year.

This happens on a noticeable scale:

The MPA Finance & Resources Committee agreed a revised Capital Programme budget on 15th July 2010 at £276.3m for 2010/11 following the first quarter review. This

…

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Posted in London | Tagged and | 6 Comments
Mark Pack

Five of the best political adverts: Labour’s Tax Bombshell

By Mark Pack | Fri 10th December 2010 - 9:25 am

This week we’re running a series featuring five of the most effective political adverts. Today the series finishes with the Conservative 1992 classic:

Labour’s margin of victory in 1997 was so great that it would have almost certainly won even if it had run an appalling set of adverts rather than ones of the quality of yesterday’s party political broadcast.

However, Labour’s defeat in the previous 1992 election had a lot to do with the way the Conservatives expertly attacked Labour’s economic policies via advertising, raising fears of a tax bombshell that would hit ordinary people.

As with the Australian Labor Party’s …

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Mark Pack

Fairer votes referendum: it needs to be about the voting system, not the government

By Mark Pack | Thu 9th December 2010 - 12:54 pm

Contrasting poll results from YouGov and ICM on the AV referendum show how important it is avoid the referendum becoming a vote for or against the government rather than about the merits of the alternative vote compared to first past the post.

An ICM poll has found the Yes camp leading by 35% – 22% (with the balance don’t know or wouldn’t vote), which compares to a 35% – 41% deficit on the latest YouGov poll.

However, there is an important difference between the wording of the two polling questions, with YouGov’s question starting, “The Conservative-Liberal Democrat government are committed …

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Posted in News | Tagged , , , , and | 24 Comments
Mark Pack

Five of the best political adverts: Britain deserves better

By Mark Pack | Thu 9th December 2010 - 10:25 am

This week we’re running a series featuring five of the most effective political adverts. After looking at the US and Australia, today it is back to the UK and the 1997 general election campaign:

Yesterday’s Australian advert, It’s Time, looked as much like a music video as a political advert. Music too played a major role in one of the UK Labour Party’s 1997 general election broadcasts, and the most powerful of all the ones I’ve seen ‘live’ at the time of broadcast.

As in the Australian Labor Party’s case, Labour too had been out of power for a long time – 18 years this time – and also faced an incumbent government that many felt had passed its sell-by date. The genius of the Labour ’97 effort was to put together ingredients which usually featured in Conservative broadcasts – patriotic music, Union Jacks, Conservative ministers, celebrating Conservative members – and turn them into a devastating attack, raising fears of what another term of Conservative government might do.

As I noted in my previous blog post about this broadcast, watch out for the very different way in which Ken Clarke was viewed then compared with now:

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Posted in Op-eds | Tagged , and | 6 Comments
Mark Pack

What do the academics say? Tax and public support

By Mark Pack | Thu 9th December 2010 - 8:54 am

Welcome to the latest in our occasional series highlighting interesting findings from academic research. This time it is a paper from David Brockington (University of Plymouth) and Todd Donovan (Western Washington University) looking at the political impact of increasing taxes.

After reviewing the work of others in this area, they focus in on council tax levels and election results in English local councils, comparing the performance of Labour and Conservative against changes in council tax levels:

We have tested if governments that presided over marginal increases in existing taxes lost vote share and seat share in the subsequent election. We find that

…

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

Lib Dem ministers follow advice for councillors and give 10% to the party

By Mark Pack | Wed 8th December 2010 - 5:48 pm

Over the last few years there has been an increasingly common pattern in the party of asking or expecting councillors to contribute sums to their local party or council group to help pay for the campaigning that got them elected and for other support. The standard request is for the equivalent of 10% of what they receive in allowances (often with adjustments for less well off councillors).

As Michael Crick reports, Liberal Democrat ministers are taking a similar approach:

Nick Clegg and his 19 fellow Liberal Democrat ministers are giving around 10% of their ministerial salaries to the party.

“We are asked

…

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Posted in News | Tagged | 29 Comments
Mark Pack

Marked registers lost, votes counted up wrongly – but Returning Officer judged to have met performance standards

By Mark Pack | Wed 8th December 2010 - 11:55 am

My original headline was going to be “One-third of (Acting) Returning Officers assess their own performance wrongly”, but the more closely I look at the latest Returning Officer performance data from the Electoral Commission, the worse it looks.

A sample survey by the Electoral Commission of the performance self-assessment exercise by (Acting) Returning Officers found that 33 out of 100 had assessed their own performance wrongly. The findings, detailed in the Commission’s report on the latest performance standards (p.6-7), call into question how useful the assessment system really is.

But even worse than this headline figure, in Wolverhampton the Returning Officer …

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Posted in Election law and News | Tagged , and | 3 Comments
Mark Pack

Five of the best political adverts: It’s Time

By Mark Pack | Wed 8th December 2010 - 10:25 am

This week we’re running a series featuring five of the most effective political adverts. Today it’s the turn of Australian politics and an early 1970s musical classic:

Yesterday’s Lyndon B. Johnson Daisy Girl advert was a one-off, but by contrast one of the most effective TV advertisements in Australian political history was part of a well-planned wider campaign. After 23 years of Liberal Party rule, Gough Whitlam’s Labor party in 1972 used the slogan “It’s time“ to sum up its argument that it was time for a change. This theme was reflected widely in the Labor Party’s activities and also in the classic TV advert.

Looking more like the sort of pop video that subsequently became popular, the advert featured an Australian rock singer, Alison McCallum, singing a song about how it was time to change, intercut with stills of Gough Whitlam’s background and a supporting singing chorus of Australian celebrities. It worked far better than that might make it sound!

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Posted in Op-eds | Tagged and | 1 Comment
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