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Author Archives: Mark Pack

Mark was the Liberal Democrat Head of Innovations until June 2009 and is now at Blue Rubicon. He also lectures at City University and is co-author of 101 Ways To Win An Election. He blogs at www.markpack.org.uk and is on Twitter as @markpack. He likes chocolate. Lots of it.
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Andy Coulson under fire over fresh phone-hacking allegations

By Mark Pack | Tue 4th May 2010 - 4:20 pm

The Guardian reports:

David Cameron’s close adviser, Andy Coulson, has come under fresh attack after the disclosure of new evidence of the News of the World’s role in the illegal interception of the royal household’s voicemail messages during his time as editor.

The evidence is in the outline for a book planned by the private investigator at the centre of the affair, Glenn Mulcaire. The outline was written before Mulcaire signed a deal with the paper which stopped the book’s publication and gagged him from speaking about the scandal.

The outline directly contradicts the News of the World’s claim that Mulcaire broke the

…

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Posted in News | Tagged andy coulson, david cameron, glenn mulcaire and journalism | 5 Comments

When is an arrest not an arrest? The curious case of Kathryn Smith

By Mark Pack | Tue 4th May 2010 - 3:20 pm

The News Shopper reports:

Labour parliamentary candidate for Gravesham Kathryn Smith has been arrested on suspicion of drink-driving after crashing her car into a roundabout.

The incident reportedly took place in University Way, Dartford, at the junction of Joyce Green Lane, at around 10pm on Monday.

It is understood she was breathalysed at the scene and asked to provide a blood sample…

A Kent Police spokewsoman said: “A 49-year-old woman from Welling has been arrested on suspicion of drink driving following a road traffic collision on April 26.” …

In a statement to News Shopper, Miss Smith denied she had been arrested.

Curious.

Posted in News | Tagged gravesham and labour party | 1 Comment

Socks review

By Mark Pack | Tue 4th May 2010 - 1:20 pm

By this point in a campaign blisters on feet and holes in socks are a common occurrence. So on your behalf dear reader I’ve been trying out some Liberal Democrat socks from My Favourite Socks:

News to report so far: each sock comes supplied with the right number of holes (one). Testing putting them in and taking them out of my washing machine has so far resulted in no lost socks. As an added bonus the logo bird is the right (new) logo rather than the old …

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Posted in News | 2 Comments

What the public thinks should happen in a hung Parliament

By Mark Pack | Tue 4th May 2010 - 12:35 pm

Only one in five voters think David Cameron should try to form a minority government if his party is the largest but short of an overall majority after Thursday’s general election.

The finding comes in a YouGov poll for The Sun which finds that 37% think in such circumstances Cameron should try to form a “grand coalition” with Labour and Lib Dems and a further 24% think he should “seek to work with the Liberal Democrats”. Only 20% said he should “seek to form a minority government, without doing any deals with any other party”.

Although The Sun has previously …

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Posted in Polls | Tagged david cameron, hung parliament and the sun | 5 Comments

Labour: give us 21 years to get a majority elected House of Lords

By Mark Pack | Tue 4th May 2010 - 11:20 am

Over the Bank Holiday, I thought I’d check exactly what Labour’s manifesto says about getting a House of Lords where at least a majority of its members are elected. After 13 years in power with repeated commissions, studies and votes on the matter, not to mention senior Labour figures proclaiming their commitment to having at least some democracy in the Lords, you’ve have thought they’d be planning to get a move on.

But oh boy.

Under Labour’s manifesto it’ll take one Parliament (typically 4 years) to get to a one-third elected House of Lords.

Then it will take another full Parliament (typically another …

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Posted in News | Tagged house of lords | Leave a comment

“Labour candidate in court on careless driving charge”

By Mark Pack | Mon 3rd May 2010 - 7:20 pm

The Herald reports:

A Labour candidate in a key target seat is to appear in court next month after being charged with careless driving.

Thomas Docherty, who is fighting the marginal Dunfermline and West Fife constituency, is alleged to have skipped a red light on June 18 last year, at Carnegie Drive in Dunfermline…

He is trying to win back a constituency his party lost to the Liberal Democrats in a by-election in 2006. Labour won the seat at the 2005 General Election with a majority of more than 11,500.

You can read the full story here.

Posted in News | Tagged dunfermline & west fife and thomas docherty | 1 Comment

Weirdest comment by a mainstream politician so far

By Mark Pack | Mon 3rd May 2010 - 6:16 pm

The prize surely goes to Richard Ali, Conservative candidate for Burnley:

I’ve got balls and I know how to use them.

The comment was made at a local student hustings.

Posted in General Election | Tagged burnley and richard ali | 4 Comments

When is a late surge not a late surge? (aka how Reuters gets the news wrong)

By Mark Pack | Mon 3rd May 2010 - 4:08 pm

When all the changes in party support in an opinion poll are within the margin of error. Pretty obvious stuff you’d have thought, but take a look at the Reuters headline for its new marginal seats poll:

Poll shows late surge for Conservatives in swing seats

Now look at the actual vote shares:

Conservative 36% (+1)
Labour 36% (-2)
Lib Dem 20% (-1)

In other words, all the changes are within the margin of error. This is not a poll result that justifies the “surge” headline, even though curiously Reuters does rightly describe the Lib Dem share as “steady” which is a fair description for …

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Posted in Polls | Tagged reuters | 11 Comments

Postal ballots are not the same as postal vote application forms

By Mark Pack | Mon 3rd May 2010 - 2:20 pm

The Guardian today seems to confuse application forms for postal votes with the actual ballot papers that postal voters receive:

At the weekend David Monks, head of elections for the Society of Local Authority Chief Executives, called for a ban on political parties handling postal votes amid fears that activists are collecting ballot papers before forwarding them on in order to record the results in their canvassing process. This breaches a national code of conduct, but is not illegal.

Activists taking postal ballot papers and then recording the voting intention from them would leave them open to legal action (e.g. undue …

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Posted in Election law | Tagged david monks, postal voting and the guardian | 2 Comments

Liberal Democrats unveil high-profile supporters

By Mark Pack | Mon 3rd May 2010 - 1:20 pm

The degree to which celebrity endorses for a political party really help is often debated. There is the occasional figure who, through their popularity and respect in which they are held, almost certainly does have an impact on people. More generally, it’s the overall pattern which helps show which way the political winds are blowing.

On both scores, it’s good to see the latest set of high-profile people who have come out as voting Liberal Democrat this time:

Floella Benjamin – presenter and children’s rights campaigner: “I am supporting the Liberal Democrats because one of their key pledges is to give all

…

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Posted in General Election | 43 Comments

When up is down and down is up

By Mark Pack | Mon 3rd May 2010 - 12:20 pm

A quick explanation for people who are new to pouring over the details of polls and, as several people have commented, are confused by the conflicting figures given for whether a party is up or down and if so by how much in a poll.

Different polling companies use different methods, so comparing – say – an ICM poll with a previous BPIX poll isn’t comparing like with like. Therefore when looking at a poll it makes sense to calculate up/down figures based on the previous poll by that polling firm.

However, polling firms often do work for more than one media …

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Posted in Polls | Tagged anthony well, mike smithson and tweetminster | 4 Comments

Clegg makes bold pitch for northern working class

By Mark Pack | Mon 3rd May 2010 - 10:50 am

So reports The Times:

Nick Clegg mounted his most sustained assault on the Labour heartlands yesterday with a journey from Burnley to Redcar in which he pitched the Liberal Democrats as the party of the northern working class.

It was a bold thrust from a Westminster School old boy at the head of a party that has thrived in more prosperous parts, and he seemed to recognise the scale of the task as he made his appeal in a church in Burnley. “I understand that for some people it feels like almost a betrayal not to vote Labour but to start investing

…

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Posted in General Election | Tagged burnley, colne valley, nick clegg and redcar | 6 Comments

Blackburn Conservative leaflet stirs up controversy

By Mark Pack | Mon 3rd May 2010 - 10:11 am

The Guardian reports:

The Conservatives last night withdrew a leaflet targeted at Muslims that claimed Labour was complicit in “a whole saga of atrocities” in Iraq, Afghanistan, Palestine and Lebanon.

The leaflet, published by Tories in Blackburn, where their candidate, Michael Law-Riding, is up against the justice secretary, Jack Straw, also predicted Straw would be likely to criticise Muslim beards and caps, after he asked Muslim women to remove the veil in his constituency surgeries.

It was distributed carrying the name of the Blackburn Conservative party agent…

A spokesman for the Conservatives stressed the leaflet had not been sanctioned by headquarters and later said

…

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Posted in News | Tagged blackburn, conservative party, jack straw and michael law-riding | 6 Comments

Second police investigation into publication of postal vote information

By Mark Pack | Sun 2nd May 2010 - 9:20 pm

During the week Alex Foster blogged about the case of Bristol East Labour MP Kerry McCarthy who is facing a police investigation following a tweet giving voting figures from a postal vote opening.* She subsequently deleted the tweet and apologised but we await the outcome of the police investigation.

I now hear there is a second police investigation taking place, this time into a Scottish blogger who published information that was apparently supplied by the SNP based on postal vote opening in several constituencies. The post (subsequently removed) appeared on SNP Tactical Voting and made reference to three different …

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Posted in Election law | Tagged postal voting and snp | 18 Comments

Express omits to report who is second in its own opinion poll

By Mark Pack | Sun 2nd May 2010 - 6:43 pm

You’d have a hard time working out from this report in today’s Sunday Express that it’s the Liberal Democrats who are in second place in the latest Angus Reid poll the newspaper has commissioned.

If you try really hard you can just about work out that it’s likely that is the case (given the poll share figure given for Labour) but then there’s the talk of the Conservatives being “12 points ahead”. True, they are 12 points ahead of Labour, but no mention is made of the much smaller lead over the Lib Dems (6 points).

And a boring, boring pedant …

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Posted in Polls | Tagged angus reid and sunday express | 9 Comments

Philippa Stroud: the disappearing Conservative candidate

By Mark Pack | Sun 2nd May 2010 - 6:20 pm

This morning The Observer ran a piece detailing the less than savoury attitude towards homosexuality of Philippa Stroud, Conservative candidate for Sutton & Cheam and head of the influential Conservative think-tank Centre for Social Justice:

A high-flying prospective Conservative MP, credited with shaping many of the party’s social policies, founded a church that tried to “cure” homosexuals by driving out their “demons” through prayer…

Abi, a teenage girl with transsexual issues, was sent to the church by her parents, who were evangelical Christians. “Convinced I was demonically possessed, my parents made the decision to move to Bedford, because of this woman

…

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Posted in Online politics | Tagged conservative party, facebook, philippa stroud, sutton & cheam and twitter | 195 Comments

Don’t wake up on May 7th and say ‘I wish I’d done more’

By Mark Pack | Sun 2nd May 2010 - 2:20 pm

So says Chris Huhne:

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Posted in General Election | Tagged chris huhne | 4 Comments

“Let’s take on the tabloids”

By Mark Pack | Sun 2nd May 2010 - 12:20 pm

That’s the message from the two online campaigning groups Avaaz and 38 Degrees. One of their emails says:

The tabloid press is doing all it can to skew the election result by bullying and scaring voters. The political editor of The Sun has been given clear instructions from Rupert Murdoch: “It is my job to see that Cameron f****g well gets into Downing Street”. Murdoch and his tabloid press friends think they’ve got the right to decide who governs us.

Together we can stand up for our right to choose who we vote for and expose this cynical manipulation. Let’s shame the tabloids, and …

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Posted in News | Tagged 38 degrees, avaaz, journalism and rupert murdoch | 8 Comments

“When the public booed Liam Fox for raising hung parliament concerns” – FT

By Mark Pack | Sun 2nd May 2010 - 11:20 am

In case you missed this week’s Question Time, here’s how the FT reported it:

Last night’s Question Time ended on an extraordinary note. The public are more in favour of a hung parliament than the Tories care to admit. But I never expected an audience to heckle and boo Liam Fox when he warned of an indecisive election result triggering a run on sterling…

This should be a salutary lesson to Cameron’s team. People seem to like the idea of politicians working together. The worm in the election debate shot up when Clegg spoke about a cross-party co-operation to tackle the deficit.

…

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Posted in News | Tagged hung parliament and liam fox | 7 Comments

Scotland on Sunday is third paper to endorse Lib Dems

By Mark Pack | Sun 2nd May 2010 - 11:00 am

Today’s Scotland on Sunday becomes the third newspaper, alongside The Guardian and The Observer, to endorse the Liberal Democrats:

Make no mistake that this time around a vote for the Liberal Democrats is not a protest vote, one that can be cast casually because it will have little impact on the eventual outcome, but is a vote that could have extremely far-reaching consequences. It could increase the chances of a hung parliament, and there have been dire warnings about what that would mean for the economy. But those warnings have been exposed as barely credible. Yes, if our credit rating

…

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Posted in News | Tagged scotland on sunday | 4 Comments

The Observer endorses the Liberal Democrats

By Mark Pack | Sun 2nd May 2010 - 10:11 am

Following on from The Guardian‘s endorsement, The Observer becomes the second newspaper to back the LibDems:

The vital context for this election is the twin crises in our economy and our politics. On both issues most credit accrues to the Liberal Democrats. Their Treasury spokesman Vince Cable was prescient in warning of an unsustainable debt bubble; Nick Clegg pushed for greater openness about expenses long before the scandal erupted.

The Lib Dems have in recent years developed a habit of getting things right. They were first of the big three to embrace environmentalism, first to kick back against the assault on civil

…

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Posted in General Election | Tagged independent on sunday, sunday people and the observer | 5 Comments

Daily View: the human poster special

By Mark Pack | Sun 2nd May 2010 - 9:00 am

Following our election special poster and virtual poster editions, time to round off the campaign with the human poster:

Posted in Daily View | 1 Comment

Over £6,000 raised online for Evan Harris

By Mark Pack | Sat 1st May 2010 - 4:40 pm

Regular readers of my posts about online politics will know my scepticism of the extent to which online fundraising can work in the UK on the same scale as it does in the US (e.g. because there’s a different attitude towards supporting causes by giving money rather than time in the US and because in the UK campaigns, courtesy of their parties, usual start with a significant donor lists rather than having to create ones from scratch).

However, what it certainly can do is to catch a moment of enthusiasm and to make it easy to do that which would otherwise …

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Posted in Online politics | Tagged evan harris, neil fawcett and oxford west & abingdon | 2 Comments

What does Vince Cable do on Hounslow High Street?

By Mark Pack | Sat 1st May 2010 - 2:20 pm

The answer to that, and a fair few other questions, is to be found in the interview conducted by ShortList with Vince Cable. Here’s a sample:

What’s your relationship like with your opposite numbers?
It’s perfectly cordial. There’s no personal animosity. We’re not close, but if I meet George Osborne in corridor I’ll say hello. It’s pleasantries – no nastiness.

Who do you prefer: Gordon Brown or David Cameron?
Well, I don’t prefer either of them. They’re both very disappointing in differing ways. Brown’s whole reputation was based upon economic competence, yet we’ve had the mother of all busts. Cameron has charm, but where’s

…

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Posted in News | Tagged vince cable | Leave a comment

Electoral administration isn’t going quite as well as it should…

By Mark Pack | Sat 1st May 2010 - 11:20 am

First, the good news: all the reports so far indicated a strong surge in people registering just before the deadline earlier this month. The Independent has some further figures to add to earlier reports. Thankfully, Havering Council with its hostile approach to people using the Electoral Commission’s website seems to be very much the exception. Whilst its electoral division has called “ridiculous” the number of people registering at the last moment, other councils have welcomed the surge of interest rather than criticised it.

Then the not so good news…

Allegations of postal vote fraud: the scale of the allegations, …

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Posted in Election law | Tagged electoral registration, haringey, havering council, kensington and chelsea, northern ireland, postal voting, preston, tower hamlets and vale of glamorgan | 6 Comments

Lib Dems aggressively expand targeting strategy against Conservatives and Labour

By Mark Pack | Sat 1st May 2010 - 9:32 am

In amongst all the usual clichés about “the only poll that matters is the one on polling day” and “our canvassing returns are excellent” one sure insight into what a party’s is really planning and how it really thinks are going is where it sends its party leader around the country.

The campaign visits this weekend by Nick Clegg illustrate in public what I’ve heard from party campaigning sources – an aggressive move against Conservative seats combined with a long list of possible gains from Labour.

The visits this weekend are to:

Burnley – one of the main Lib Dem targets from Labour, which even when expectations …

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Posted in General Election | Tagged nick clegg, ros scott and vera baird | 15 Comments

Want a leaflet to deliver in your area?

By Mark Pack | Sat 1st May 2010 - 9:01 am

The surge of new volunteers and supporters which has come in following the first TV debate and the rise of the party to unprecedented election campaign polling heights means that often there are people wanting to help in areas where existing local parties don’t have that much for them to do.

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Posted in News | 12 Comments

Can you help Emily Thornberry?

By Mark Pack | Fri 30th April 2010 - 11:51 pm

Emily Thornberry, Labour MP for Islington South, has been on Newsnight repeatedly claiming there is nothing new in The Guardian’s support for the Liberal Democrats and that it’s just a repeat of what the paper said in 2005.

So perhaps you can help her by seeing if you can work out the difference?

The Guardian, 2005: “Voters should use their heads and hearts to re-elect Labour with an increased Liberal Democrat presence.”

The Guardian, 2010: “If the Guardian had a vote in the 2010 general election it would be cast enthusiastically for the Liberal Democrats.”

Re-elect Labour? Vote Liberal Democrat? It’s all …

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Posted in News | Tagged emily thornberry, islington south and finsbury and the guardian | 8 Comments

Tactical voting set for a boost?

By Mark Pack | Fri 30th April 2010 - 9:15 pm

Earlier this month I wrote,

For a long time after David Cameron’s election to leader of the Conservative Party there was widespread talk of “tactical unwind”, that is how his changes to the Conservative Party may result in much less anti-Tory tactical voting at the next general election. It’s one of the range of reasons that many Tories quote for believing that they will do better in terms of seat numbers than the overall vote numbers suggest.

However, what’s struck me for some time is how the overall political campaigning is playing out in a way that is likely to rewind the

…

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Posted in General Election | Tagged compass and tactical voting | 49 Comments

Postal voting under police scrutiny

By Mark Pack | Fri 30th April 2010 - 4:20 pm

There have been two further recent reports of police investigations into postal vote allegations:

Police to investigate claims of postal vote fraud in council poll
… A complaint has been sent by the Conservative party to Derbyshire police about suspected fraud in the Sinfin ward in the Derby City Council local elections – which will be held on May 6, the same day as the General Election.

The complaint involves concerns that a voter was approached by men requesting her to fill in and sign three postal voting forms in favour of the Labour party… (Derby Telegraph)

Police probe ‘voting fraud’ at Bethnal

…

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Posted in News | Tagged bethnal green & bow, derby city council, postal voting, rob hoveman and tower hamlets | 10 Comments