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 Saturday debate: does Catherine Zeta Jones need more public recognition?

By Mark Pack | Sat 12th June 2010 - 2:31 pm

A simple enough question to pose for today, with the Queen’s Birthday Honours in the news: should honours go to people who have already received wide-spread public acclaim and wealth such as Catherine Zeta Jones or should the honours be reserved for otherwise unrecognised people? Over to you…

Posted in Op-eds | Tagged and | 14 Comments
Mark Pack

Well done that poster team

By Mark Pack | Sat 12th June 2010 - 9:20 am

Now that’s an impressive poster site.

Posted in News | 1 Comment
Mark Pack

Two Tory non-doms quit the Lords

By Mark Pack | Fri 11th June 2010 - 10:29 pm

A footnote to our previous coverage of Lords McAlpine and Laidlaw, two non-dom Conservative members of the House of Lords. They had both for a long time been unmoved by criticism of their tax affairs, but ahead of changes to the law they have both decided to give up their seats in the Lords.

Lord McAlpine’s case was relatively straight-forward, but Lord Laidlaw’s case had the added twist that he broke a promise he made on being appointed. Indeed, the Lords Appointment Commission was subsequently moved to say that they would not have authorised his peerage if they had known …

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Mark Pack

The police’s serious IT failures over stop and search

By Mark Pack | Fri 11th June 2010 - 12:50 pm

The use of stop and search by the police, particularly in London, has often come under criticism. Most often it’s been about ridiculous cases where someone has been stopped or, more seriously, the deeply held suspicion amongst many communities that their members are irrationally singled out by the police for far more searches than their numbers or crime rates justify. This argument about what is sometimes called disproportionality should not only be of concern in terms of wanting to see the police free of discrimination, but also of concern in terms of wanting the police to be using their time …

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Posted in London | Tagged and | 4 Comments
Mark Pack

Freeing up local council finances: details published

By Mark Pack | Thu 10th June 2010 - 8:20 pm

The Government has today published details of its plans to reduce the ring-fencing restrictions around how local government can spend money. The timing is rather double-edged; giving more control over their own finances to local councils has long been a Liberal Democrat demand, but there’s no doubt that Eric Pickles will also have been attracted by the idea of making councils decide where to make future cuts. Even so, it’s a step in the right direction.

The overall effect is a:

Reduction in revenue and capital non-schools ring-fencing this year from 10.7 per cent (£4.5bn) to only 7.7 per cent (£3.2bn) as

…

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Posted in Local government | Tagged | 4 Comments
Mark Pack

NEW POLL: Should capital and income be taxed at the same level?

By Mark Pack | Thu 10th June 2010 - 6:50 pm

In amongst the debate over capital gains tax and the politics of whether the Budget leans more towards the previous Liberal Democrat or Conservative policies on the topic is a significant issue of principle.

The Liberal Democrats (and previously the Liberals in particular) have traditionally been much keener on the idea that the tax system should treat ‘unearned income’ more equally to earned income, and so tax more equally the growth in capital value of assets compared with salaries.

Of course the use of the word ‘unearned’ is itself the trigger for a whole range of debates as increase values …

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Posted in Voice polls | Tagged , and | 33 Comments
Mark Pack

What does a Labour ex-minister think of deficits?

By Mark Pack | Thu 10th June 2010 - 8:50 am

As the Telegraph reported:

Lord Myners, the former City minister, last night criticised Gordon Brown’s administration for living beyond its means and said he had been frustrated by his colleagues’ “flawed thinking” on the economy. “There is nothing progressive about a government that consistently spends more than it can raise in taxation,” he said.

Posted in News | Tagged and | 3 Comments
Mark Pack

Welcome to the new bloggers…

By Mark Pack | Wed 9th June 2010 - 12:20 pm

A bumper thirteen blogs have recently joined Ryan’s Liberal Democrat Blogs aggregator:

Good luck to all the new bloggers, and why not take a moment to pop over to their blogs, take a read and post a comment?

Whether you are a new or experience blogger yourself, you may also find our compilation of “how to blog” posts useful:

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Posted in Online politics | Tagged | 2 Comments
Mark Pack

Turning Canadian

By Mark Pack | Wed 9th June 2010 - 10:20 am

Overseas places come and go as the fashionable one to talk about in Westminster political circles. After 1992 it was Japan, with the fourth Conservative general election victory in a row spawning comparisons with Japan and the long period of Liberal Democrat rule there. In the run up to 2005 it was the Australian state of Queensland, where an incumbent state government had seemed set for re-election but suffered a shock defeat, put down largely to complacency amongst its supporters. And of course, as a third example, when in doubt there’s always the 1960 US Presidential election, Barack Obama or …

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Mark Pack

How to get Lib Dem Voice by email

By Mark Pack | Mon 7th June 2010 - 2:20 pm

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 convenient links to click on if any take your fancy and you want to take a read.

Just go to our email sign up page to start getting these emails. You can also sign up for a special once-a-week email, bringing …

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Posted in Site news | 2 Comments
Mark Pack

The coalition’s electoral reform plans for the Commons

By Mark Pack | Mon 7th June 2010 - 1:39 pm

As today’s Evening Standard reports, the government is planning to put both an AV referendum and reducing the number of MPs in the same Parliamentary bill, thereby making it harder for any possible rebels to unpick this part of the coalition agreement compromise.

For many the Conservatives, reducing the number of MPs and accompanying that with a speeded up boundary review which is completed before 2015 is an important consolation for the risk (as they see it) of the voting system being changed. That’s because on many estimates the net effect on the proportion of Conservative MPs of the boundary …

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Posted in News | Tagged and | 31 Comments
Mark Pack

Public interest up, turnout down

By Mark Pack | Mon 7th June 2010 - 9:40 am

One of the great strengths of the polling firm MORI is that they have consistently asked the same questions over decades, making comparisons across elections, decades and even generations possible.* One of these comparisons over time that has caught my eye is the level of public interest in elections:

Thinking back to the campaign, how interested would you say you were in news about the General Election?

1992: 52% very or fairly interested
2010: 75% very or fairly interested

That is a big increase in the level of declared public interest in election news. Turnout, however, was 78% in 1992, falling to 65% …

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Posted in News | Tagged and | 14 Comments
Mark Pack

When is a fee a bonus?

By Mark Pack | Sun 6th June 2010 - 9:20 pm

The Daily Telegraph‘s hostile piece about some of the payments being made to Returning Officers from the General Election highlights the unusual way in which key staff are paid for their role in organising elections:

At least six of the officials responsible for the chaos which left hundreds unable to vote have collected substantial bonuses for their work on polling day.

The use of the word “bonus” here is debatable. From one perspective, the payments made to Returning Officers are not bonuses but rather the standard fee payable for running an election. However, the role of being Returning Officer goes with …

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Posted in Election law | Tagged | 4 Comments
Mark Pack

Oldham election result heading to court

By Mark Pack | Sun 6th June 2010 - 7:50 pm

As we reported last month, the election result in Oldham East and Saddleworth – where Labour’s Phil Woolas hung on by just 103 votes – has triggered complaints from the Liberal Democrat candidate, Elwyn Watkins, that Labour’s campaign broke the law.

The case is now heading to the courts. As the BBC reports,

In the last few days of the campaign, Labour put out a small newspaper which was predominantly an attack on their Liberal Democrat opponent, Elwyn Watkins.

Mr Watkins believes the leaflet falsely portrayed him as a politician courting votes from militant Muslims; not a group known to be particularly

…

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Posted in Election law | Tagged , , and | 15 Comments
Mark Pack

The coalition agreement: transport & universities and further education

By Mark Pack | Sun 6th June 2010 - 5:50 pm

Welcome to the twentieth and last (phew!) in a series of posts going through the full coalition agreement section by section. You can read the full coalition document here.

Traditionally the transport sections of party manifestos contain commitments to various expensive, long-term public expenditure projects. In the current financial climate it is no surprise that the coalition agreement’s transport section is rather heavy on matters of regulation and bureaucracy and rather light on directly spending money to improve transport.

So we have a promise to “make Network Rail more accountable to its customers”, a commitment to “fair pricing for rail travel”, a …

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Mark Pack

“Nick Clegg vows no return to savage cuts of the Thatcher years”

By Mark Pack | Sun 6th June 2010 - 10:50 am

So reports The Observer, writing up its interview with Nick Clegg:

In an interview with the Observer, he launched a withering attack on the economic policies of Margaret Thatcher and promised instead to look to the examples of Sweden, Canada and the US to deliver “progressive” cuts.

“It is important that people understand that fiscal retrenchment does not mean a repeat of the 1980s. We’re going to do this differently,” said Clegg, in a move that risks angering MPs on the Conservative right, many of whom admire their former leader. The deputy prime minister said he would use his authority “ruthlessly” to

…

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Posted in News | Tagged | 17 Comments
Mark Pack

The coalition agreement: social care and disability & taxation

By Mark Pack | Sat 5th June 2010 - 12:20 pm

Welcome to the nineteenth in a series of posts going through the full coalition agreement section by section. You can read the full coalition document here.

Although when talking about other parts of the agreement I’ve sometimes being quite critical about the parking of issues with commissions or reviews, the commission on long-term care is a good move. It has a clear remit, has to report within a year and tackles an area which requires policies that have a chance of long term cross-party agreement given the nature of the subject. The failure of cross-party talks prior to the election means the …

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Mark Pack

The coalition agreement: social action

By Mark Pack | Fri 4th June 2010 - 3:45 pm

Welcome to the eighteenth in a series of posts going through the full coalition agreement section by section. You can read the full coalition document here.

At the time David Cameron started talking about the Big Society, the concept struck me as a mix of traditional community politics and vagueness. Looking at the specifics in this section, there is still a fair amount of vagueness, but the specifics are ones that often touch on themes which our party (or more precisely the Liberal Party) has talked about in the past and rather neglected in more recent years. In other words, it’s …

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Mark Pack

The coalition agreement: public health and schools

By Mark Pack | Fri 4th June 2010 - 12:40 pm

Welcome to the seventeenth in a series of posts going through the full coalition agreement section by section. You can read the full coalition document here.

The public health section is very brief and rather anomalous as a section on its own, though given the length of the NHS section splitting this area off makes some sense. There is little of surprise in what there is of this section – public health is important (gosh), it should be improved (shock) and the government will be ambitious (crikey). Innovation is also good (well I never).

The details do however give a flavour of …

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Mark Pack

Jamie Stone to stand down as an MSP

By Mark Pack | Thu 3rd June 2010 - 1:35 pm

Andrew Reeves has the news:

Jamie Stone, Scottish Liberal Democrat MSP for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross, has announced that he will step down from the Scottish Parliament at the next Scottish election. Mr Stone is stepping down 25 years of public service to pursue new avenues.

Jamie is the second Highland Liberal Democrats MSP to announce he is standing down.

John Farquar-Munro MSP is also standing down and Alan MacRae has been selected to replace John and fight the seat at next years election.

You can read the full story here.

Posted in Scotland | Tagged , and | 2 Comments
Mark Pack

The coalition agreement: political reform

By Mark Pack | Thu 3rd June 2010 - 12:25 pm

Welcome to the sixteenth in a series of posts going through the full coalition agreement section by section. You can read the full coalition document here.

The political reform section of the coalition document is the second longest in the whole agreement, beaten for length only by the NHS section. By now the headlines from this section are very familiar:

  • Fixed-term Parliaments
  • A referendum on the alternative vote
  • The ability for voters to force an MP to face a special by-election if they have been found guilty of serious wrongdoing (“recall”)
  • A “wholly or mainly” elected House of Lords, using proportional representation
  • Any petition that gets

…

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Posted in News | Tagged , , , , and | 12 Comments
Mark Pack

The other Lib Dem Parliamentary contest

By Mark Pack | Thu 3rd June 2010 - 9:20 am

Note: the following post has been substantially updated as a combination of circumstances meant the original had various inaccuracies. Apologies for that.

It’s not only Liberal Democrat MPs who are gearing up to vote next week. So too are their colleagues in the upper house where the leader of the Lib Dem peers Tom McNally now in government at the Ministry of Justice. Navnit Dholakia is unopposed for deputy leader but a new ‘backbench forum’ is also being created and that will see some contests.

Joan Walmsley and John Alderdice are standing for convenor and Kishwer Falkner and Jane Bonham Carter are contesting the role …

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Mark Pack

Deputy Leadership contest latest: Huhne backs Farron

By Mark Pack | Wed 2nd June 2010 - 9:15 pm

A news release from the Tim Farron campaign says:

Tim Farron today announced that Secretary of State for DECC, Chris Huhne, will be supporting Tim’s candidacy for Deputy Leader of the Liberal Democrats.

Mr Huhne’s support comes on the same day as candidates for Deputy Leader put forward their nominating signatures to the Parliamentary Party. Other MPs who have now confirmed their support for Mr Farron include MP for Cheltenham, Martin Horwood and newly elected MP St Austell and Newquay, Stephen Gilbert.

Commenting Mr Huhne said:

“Tim Farron has the passion, experience and energy to be highly effective as deputy leader. Working alongside Nick …

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Mark Pack

The coalition agreement: pensions and older people

By Mark Pack | Wed 2nd June 2010 - 5:45 pm

Welcome to the fifteenth in a series of posts going through the full coalition agreement section by section. You can read the full coalition document here.

The story of this section in a nutshell is “short term good news, long term uncertainty”. In the short term pensions will get a good deal: “We will restore the earnings link for the basic state pension from April 2011, with a ‘triple guarantee’ that pensions are raised by the higher of earnings, prices of 2.5%”. This is a more generous deal, and sooner, than Labour proposed in their manifesto.

There is also a promise to …

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

London congestion charge: 2 August deadline for consultation

By Mark Pack | Wed 2nd June 2010 - 1:20 pm

Transport for London is running a consultation on Mayor of London Boris Johnson’s plans to axe the western extension to the congestion charge zone, increase the daily charge, change the exemptions and introduce a discount for automated payments.

At heart this is the sort of consultation which gives the word a bad name: the big political decision to axe the western extension has been made, the public had their chance to cast a verdict on it via the ballot box and now this ‘consultation’ is a bit of process that no-one really believes could change Boris Johnson’s mind.

However, there are also …

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Mark Pack

Ofcom publishes draft code for internet piracy

By Mark Pack | Wed 2nd June 2010 - 12:15 pm

At the end of last week the regulator Ofcom published a draft of the code to be followed for taking action against online copyright infringement following the passage of the Digital Economy Act.

As Rory Cellan-Jones points out, some aspects of the draft code deal with concerns raised during the passage of the Act. In particular, the code only applies to ISPs with over 400,000 customers, thereby excluding operators of Wi-Fi networks such as cafes and universities who had been worried they would be forced to incur significant costs tightly policing their networks.

The code also confirms one of the concessions …

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Mark Pack

The coalition agreement: national security and the NHS

By Mark Pack | Wed 2nd June 2010 - 10:20 am

Welcome to the fourteenth in a series of posts going through the full coalition agreement section by section. You can read the full coalition document here.

The national security section is brief, outlining the creation of a National Security Council, the commencement of a defence review and a promise to “deny public funds to any group that has recently espoused or incited violence or hatred. We will proscribe such organisations”. The pledge on deportation is carefully balanced: “Britain should be able to deport foreign nationals who threaten our security to countries where there are verifiable guarantees that they will not be …

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Mark Pack

It’s not Lib Dem policy; it’s better than Lib Dem policy

By Mark Pack | Tue 1st June 2010 - 10:09 pm

Yesterday Downing Street published a letter from David Cameron setting out the Government’s plans to open up data. Much of the letter is straight from the Conservative manifesto and very little is from the Liberal Democrat one. However, that is not a reason for Liberal Democrats to be nervous – for on these points the Conservative manifesto was more detailed and better than the Liberal Democrat one but laid out policies that could (and should) have happily sat in the Lib Dem one.

The broad principle is one of making data open and convenient:

Given the importance of this agenda, the Deputy

…

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Mark Pack

The coalition agreement: jobs & welfare and justice

By Mark Pack | Tue 1st June 2010 - 12:20 pm

Welcome to the thirteenth in a series of posts going through the full coalition agreement section by section. You can read the full coalition document here.

The jobs and welfare section of the coalition agreement is one of the least important – not because the policy area doesn’t matter (it certainly does) but because it says very little beyond, “we want to make the welfare system better”. Quite what better means and whether it can really be done is all down to how Iain Duncan Smith in particular does his job, the choices he makes and the degree to which pensions …

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Mark Pack

David Laws: should I stay as an MP?

By Mark Pack | Tue 1st June 2010 - 11:01 am

Last night David Laws issues the following statement to the local media in his constituency (source):

The last few days have been the toughest of my life, and I would like to thank all those friends, family and local residents who have sent me messages of support.

It has been a very emotional experience to find so many people willing to stand by me at this difficult time.

My problems have been caused by my unwillingness to be open about my sexuality, and not by any intention to exploit the MPs expenses system.

James Lundie and I were aware that we could have …

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Posted in News | Tagged | 76 Comments
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