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

Clegg backs graduate tax in Telegraph interview

By Mark Pack | Sat 21st August 2010 - 11:10 am

Credit where credit is due, today’s Telegraph interview with Nick Clegg covers a range of substantive policy issues and gives the Deputy Prime Minister the space to give nuanced answers where the question requires them.

The biggest story is Clegg’s clear steer on a graduate tax as the way to square financial demands with the party’s dislike of tuition fees:

While David Willetts, the universities minister, said this week that it was for Lord Browne’s ongoing study to recommend increased tuition fees or a tax, Mr Clegg comes down firmly for the latter. “ children are very intimidated by levels of

…

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Mark Pack

“The Liberal Democrats aren’t a sort of glorified form of the Electoral Reform Society”

By Mark Pack | Fri 20th August 2010 - 3:21 pm

So says Nick Clegg in an interview for Radio 4’s Westminster Hour.

His underlying point is a good one – the coalition isn’t a single-issue coalition which is about AV and nothing else. And, as James Graham points out, the Electoral Reform Society isn’t a sort of glorified from of the Liberal Democrats either.

However, Nick Clegg does make the point at some length in the interview – “The Liberal Democrats aren’t a sort of glorified form of the Electoral Reform Society”, “I wouldn’t have stood for the leadership of the Lib Dems if I thought the only sole purpose in …

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Mark Pack

Worth a second outing: Lessons from Gordon Brown’s use of YouTube

By Mark Pack | Fri 20th August 2010 - 2:20 pm

Welcome to a series where old posts are revived for a second outing for reasons such as their subject has become topical again, they have aged well but were first posted when the site’s readership was only a tenth or less of what it is currently or they got published and the site crashed, hiding the finest words of wisdom behind an incomprehensible error message.

Gordon Brown’s foray during his premiership into YouTube in order to promote his plans for reforming MPs’ expenses was widely panned. So what lessons should be drawn by anyone thinking of using YouTube to strengthen …

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Mark Pack

Party finances in the news

By Mark Pack | Fri 20th August 2010 - 12:58 pm

For the Conservatives it’s the quitting of their next treasurer, David Rowland, whilst for Labour it’s John Prescott warning of the Labour facing bankrupcy (the context for which you can see in these graphs).

Posted in News | Tagged , , and | 5 Comments
Mark Pack

The developing dynamics of the Lib Dem Parliamentary Party

By Mark Pack | Thu 19th August 2010 - 6:24 pm

Just over 100 days into coalition, it’s becoming clearer how the Parliamentary Party (in the Commons) is shaping up and where dissent is likely to come from in future. As I’ve argued previously, overall the Liberal Democrat Parliamentary Party has been remarkably united over the last few years. (Even the ousting of Charles Kennedy was conducted with a remarkable degree of speed and agreement amongst MPs, especially when compared with the long-running leadership agonies in Labour and, pre-2005, the Conservatives.)

Coalition is putting that Lib Dem cohesion to the test in new ways and we’re starting to see who the …

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Mark Pack

Conservatives forfeit £101,500 in donations

By Mark Pack | Thu 19th August 2010 - 5:51 pm

Two illegal donations totalling £101,500 dating back to 2004 and 2006 have been forfeited by the Conservative Party.

The issue came to light after it was revealed that over £1m in donations taken by the Conservative Party and booked as being from RF Trustee Co Ltd were not in fact donations from the company but from a series of individuals.

As a result, the Conservative Party re-examined the donations and discovered it had accepted £1,500 in 2004 from an unidentifiable source and £100,000 in 2006 from Mrs Joanna Kate King, who was not on the electoral register at the time.

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Mark Pack

Alternative Vote or Venetian Vote?

By Mark Pack | Thu 19th August 2010 - 10:20 am

Pah, who needs the Alternative Vote when you can go for the Venetian electoral system, as explained by The New Yorker:

Whenever the time came to elect a new doge of Venice, an official went to pray in St. Mark’s Basilica, grabbed the first boy he could find in the piazza, and took him back to the ducal palace. The boy’s job was to draw lots to choose an electoral college from the members of Venice’s grand families , which was the first step in a performance that has been called tortuous, ridiculous, and profound. Here is how it went,

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Mark Pack

The Miliband campaigning house parties

By Mark Pack | Wed 18th August 2010 - 11:12 pm

Over on the Total Politics website they’ve been poking fun at the ‘house party’ instructions issued by the David Miliband campaign. On reading the piece at first I thought it was being a little harsh, because house parties (where you invite electors – Labour members in this case – to a small event to discuss things face-to-face) have a great role in campaigning. And yes, the instructions are a bit detailed at points – but then many people will be hosting this sort of event for the first time ever.

Then, however, I got to this part:

Read your guests a

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Mark Pack

Who is who behind the scenes in the coalition?

By Mark Pack | Wed 18th August 2010 - 11:07 pm

Today’s Guardian has a pretty decent go at covering who the key advisers are, on both the Liberal Democrat and Conservative side, how they are working together, who talks to who and so on.

The piece has been praised by others today, but I only say “pretty decent” because it doesn’t mention Alison Suttie. Talking about Lib Dem advisers without mentioning her is a bit like talking about Lib Dem MPs without mentioning Vince or my diet without mentioning chocolate. Previously for Ming Campbell and now for Nick Clegg she’s played an absolutely key role in a deputy chief of …

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Mark Pack

Still the best political advert I’ve seen all year

By Mark Pack | Wed 18th August 2010 - 1:20 pm

The stretch from 7 seconds in until 22 seconds in is fairly normal. But as for the rest…

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Posted in Europe / International | Tagged , and | 6 Comments
Mark Pack

Book review: Campaign 2010, The Making of the Prime Minister by Nicholas Jones

By Mark Pack | Wed 18th August 2010 - 8:50 am

I am usually sceptical about instant history book as they come out before there has been time for reflection or analysis and yet whilst events are still fresh in your mind. Too often therefore the instant history account simply tells you what you can still remember, and no more. However, Nicholas Jones’s book does a good job of avoiding this trap by being rather more about Campaign 2005 – 2009 than Campaign 2010. The book may be titled Campaign 2010, but much of it is better reflected in the subtitle, The Making of the Prime Minister, for it is about the longer story of where David Cameron came from and how he repositioned the Conservative Party.

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Mark Pack

Helicopters and Trident face cuts as financial squeeze hits the MOD

By Mark Pack | Tue 17th August 2010 - 12:20 pm

Both Conservative and Liberal Democrats made plenty of justified political hay out of helicopter problems faced by our armed forces back under the Labour government. Now it looks as if both parties will be having to perform a sensitive political change of gear as the Ministry of Defence turns to making helicopter cuts.

Apart from the need to save money, there are good substantive policy reasons for this change. One is that the previous shortages have been tackled. As Paul Waugh recounts it,

When a newly-elected Prime Minister Cameron held his first meeting with defence chiefs in Number 10, he was

…

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Mark Pack

Why hearing the shipping forecast makes me optimistic

By Mark Pack | Tue 17th August 2010 - 10:20 am

When the dulcet tones of the BBC’s Shipping Forecast turn to the weather in German Bight, two thoughts often flit through my mind – both related to the history of Heligoland, an island (or strictly speaking, an inhabited island and a small uninhabited neighbour) that previously gave its name to that shipping forecast area until a name change in 1956.

The first thought is a reminder of how unbalanced  the information provided online can be. Google “Heligoland” and you will usually find results dominated by music (Heligoland was an album title for Massive Attack) and military history (Heligoland was the site …

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Mark Pack

UKIP leader Lord Pearson stands down

By Mark Pack | Tue 17th August 2010 - 8:34 am

The BBC has the story about Lord Pearson standing down as UKIP’s leader following his less than successful general election performance (with that TV interview):

In his resignation statement, Lord Pearson said he was “not much good” at party politics and UKIP “deserved a better politician… to lead it”.

The outgoing leader had a difficult general election campaign, telling one interviewer he could not remember his own manifesto in detail.

An interim leader will be chosen at UKIP’s annual conference next month.

I must admit I’m a little impressed with his departure – it’s a rare person who admits they aren’t up to …

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Mark Pack

Conservative MP goes to court over election expense limit breach

By Mark Pack | Mon 16th August 2010 - 9:37 pm

David Mundell MP (Conservative) is taking to the courts to apply for official relief for breaking his election expense limit during the general election.

The relief process is designed to allow people who make innocent and inconsequential mistakes to admit to their mistake and avoid prosecution. A typical example is if a candidate by mistake leaves a small bill off their expenses return. However, David Mundell’s case is slightly more complicated as although he too left a bill out of his short campaign expense return, adding it in takes him over the limit.

The Herald explains:

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Mark Pack

Reform of Press Complaints Commission to be debated at conference

By Mark Pack | Mon 16th August 2010 - 2:20 pm

The future of the Press Complaints Commission is up for debate at the party’s autumn conference in Liverpool. A motion from Truro & Falmouth echoes many of the criticisms made of the PCC by the Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee in its recent report. The motion calls for a fully independent regulator to take the place of the current structure which is heavily staffed by people holding current senior newspaper roles.

The motion also supports a shift in the PCC’s role from handling individual complaints towards upholding and improving press standards more generally. That’s a question I wrote about …

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Mark Pack

Council website spending put under scrutiny

By Mark Pack | Mon 16th August 2010 - 1:13 pm

Today’s Telegraph has a piece looking at the large sums being spent by many councils on new or revamped websites.

In itself, an expensive website is not necessarily a poor use of funds as good, popular sites often also save costs (e.g. by reducing the number of phonecalls the council has to handle). As a result, Medway Council – one of those picked out in the article – may have a good case for spending £250,000 in revamping its site given that the last major revamp was in 2003. In the last seven years the internet has changed significantly as have …

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Posted in Local government, News and Online politics | Tagged , and | 4 Comments
Mark Pack

Office of the Public Guardian finally starts to get some serious public scrutiny

By Mark Pack | Mon 16th August 2010 - 12:20 pm

The Office of the Public Guardian should be a wonderful public service, helping people have more control over how their lives are sorted out if they get to a point where they can’t make decisions for themselves. That’s the theory anyway. The reality is somewhat different, as I’ve chronicled with their long and complicated paperwork:

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Mark Pack

Monday will be the day of high drama (or anti-climax) at party conference

By Mark Pack | Mon 16th August 2010 - 10:20 am

Monday, 20th September: nuclear power, free schools and Nick Clegg’s conference speech. Drama, protest and dissension or quiet compromise, careful management and enthusiastic standing ovation?

It’s no coincidence that both potential controversies are scheduled for the same day as Clegg’s speech: in the worst case situation, all the bad news would be be concentrated on the one day and Clegg will still get the final word (or rather, many words) on the day with his speech coming after the possible flashpoints*.

However, it’s unlikely to come to that as the two motions are carefully worded. Nuclear power gets a mention in the …

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Mark Pack

Is the problem that people don’t want to pay for news or don’t want to pay for newspapers?

By Mark Pack | Sun 15th August 2010 - 5:50 pm

Each round of newspaper circulation figures makes grim reading for anyone trying to balance the books at a newspaper. Month after month circulation is dropping away across the board. The usual explanation is that newspapers are suffering because so much free news is now available online, and there is certainly a large degree of truth in that.

However, there are two important caveats to that. First, the massive lack of trust in journalists, who are regularly rated one of the least trusted professions in the UK. As I wrote last year on this topic,

Isn’t a major reason that people increasingly turn

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Mark Pack

By slimmest of margins Supreme Court overturns UKIP donations ruling

By Mark Pack | Sun 15th August 2010 - 9:20 am

A quick update on our previous coverage of the court case over more than £350,000 of impermissible donations accepted by UKIP. Last month the Supreme Court ruled in UKIP’s favour, reducing the amount UKIP has to repay to just under £15,000.

Although on a strict narrow literal reading of the legislation wording all impermissible donations have to be forfeit, by a 4-3 ruling the Supreme Court decided that the word “forfeit” is  used in an unusual way in the wording of the legislation and that the wider context shows that the total of impermissible donations is the maximum that …

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Mark Pack

How does the party’s policy-making work during coalition?

By Mark Pack | Sat 14th August 2010 - 3:20 pm

Here’s what the report to conference from the Federal Policy Committee (FPC) says on the matter:

The FPC has had a number of discussions on the implications for its role and the Party’s policy-making of our new status as a party of government. The FPC is very clear that the Party’s complete independence in policy-making shall continue. The Committee will be developing new ways of working both to ensure the maximum Liberal Democrat policy input into the Coalition Government, and also to continue to ensure a separate Liberal Democrat policy identity. In particular the FPC will developing a close working

…

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Posted in Party policy and internal matters | Tagged | 15 Comments
Mark Pack

Rejoice! 11 months (and 1 new government) on and the Home Office responds

By Mark Pack | Sat 14th August 2010 - 9:20 am

Long term readers may recall my concerns over how the approach the Independent Safeguarding Authority was taking to the Vetting and Baring scheme, and in particular the way its guidance suggested that it didn’t really treat being found innocent in a court as counting as being innocent.

The ISA passed the issue on to the Home Office, and – as I previously reported – then there was silence, despite prompts from me. Silence too reigned when I contacted my Labour MP, Jeremy Corbyn, three times about the matter. Between them they didn’t even reply the once.

The ISA had the …

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Mark Pack

Review of Bristol elections calls for widespread changes

By Mark Pack | Fri 13th August 2010 - 2:20 pm

Confidence in the administration of elections by Bristol Council was badly shaken this May after a series of problems, including ballot papers found in the wrong place, election results taking 6 hours longer than expected to be declared and numerous phone calls going unanswered. A detailed review of electoral administration was subsequently ordered and it has called for major changes.

The Bristol Evening Post reported,

Apart from more than half of the election phone queries going unanswered, the office for the council’s electoral services department in the Corn Exchange has been described as “woefully inadequate”. One of Ms Dixon’s many recommendations

…

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Mark Pack

The political impact of Parliamentary boundary changes

By Mark Pack | Fri 13th August 2010 - 1:55 pm

Yesterday Sara highlighted the Newsnight report into the political impact of reducing the number of Parliamentary constituencies. Democratic Audit have kindly provided me with a copy of their research which was used for the BBC headlines about how the Liberal Democrats were likely to lose out disproportionately.

You can read their report in full below, but it’s worth highlighting the significant caveats that Democratic Audit put on their results: “While it is possible to draw conclusions about how the proposals could impact on party representation, these findings must be regarded as purely indicative … It is very difficult to produce precise estimates of the likely partisan impact of these changes”. They describe their political projections as, “a rough estimate of the likely impact”.

Moreover, their calculations are based on making very little allowance for how parties will change their campaigning in response to changing boundaries. So ready a fair few pinches of salt and read on…

Projecting the Impact of Reduce and Equalise

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Mark Pack

Lessons from Australia: poster design

By Mark Pack | Fri 13th August 2010 - 12:20 pm

A quick counterpart to my previous Lessons from Canada: poster design, this time looking at Australian election posters such as this one:

Australian Liberal Party election poster

As you can see from this example from North Sydney, the usual Australian style (as is the case in European countries such as Germany) is to feature candidate or party leader photo very large, with the name of the candidate or party more like a caption to the poster than its main content.

By contrast, in the UK, the name …

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

Worth a second outing: Great Liberal Speeches: sacrificing the constitution on the altar of public security

By Mark Pack | Fri 13th August 2010 - 10:20 am

Welcome to a series where old posts are revived for a second outing for reasons such as their subject has become topical again, they have aged well but were first posted when the site’s readership was only a tenth or less of what it is currently or they got published and the site crashed, hiding the finest words of wisdom behind an incomprehensible error message.

I was one of the contributors to Great Liberal Speeches. Here is my introduction to the selected speech from George Tierney, followed by the speech itself. The issues are arguments are still very pertinent …

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Mark Pack

Two Scottish Labour councillors charged by the police

By Mark Pack | Fri 13th August 2010 - 8:50 am

Andrew Reeves has got details of John Holden, charged over alleged benefit fraud, and Gilbert Davidson, accused of inappropriate behaviour towards a female colleague.

UPDATE: Charges against Gilbert Davidson were subsequently dropped.

Posted in News | Tagged , and | 14 Comments
Mark Pack

Philip Lardner gets official warning but keeps job

By Mark Pack | Thu 12th August 2010 - 7:50 pm

A quick update on Philip Lardner, whose suspension as a Conservative candidate during the election following homophobic comments we covered back in April – and who had previously been suspended by the Conservatives in 2008 for praising Rhodesian leader Ian Smith.

After he made the homophobic remarks this year, he was also suspended from his teaching job. He has now been reinstated, but given a formal written warning over his behaviour.

Hat-tip: Stephen Glenn

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Mark Pack

Information Commissioner upholds complaint over Tony Blair’s activities

By Mark Pack | Thu 12th August 2010 - 2:50 pm

During the general election campaign I highlighted how TonyBlair4Labour, the official vehicle for Tony Blair’s campaigning on behalf of the Labour Party, looked to be illegally exporting data overseas.

The Information Commission has now (finally) ruled on my complaint, agreeing that the organisation had indeed failed to follow data protection rules properly and is now writing to instruct that this is fixed. As with my complaint about Unite breaking data protection rules during the election (also upheld), the Information Commissioner only took action after the election was over – hardly ideal as in both cases it was an issue …

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