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

Economising on candidates: Greens double up and stand in different places

By Mark Pack | Mon 19th April 2010 - 5:45 pm

Where there are two levels of local government, it’s quite common for someone to be a councillor for both, such as being both a district and a county councillor in the same area.

However, standing for two councils in different areas is another matter. It’s perfectly legal (as you can qualify in different areas under, for example, the live and work qualifications) but it raises questions about how committed you are to either place – or how you would do the two jobs, representing different areas on different councils, if elected.

So far three Green Party candidates who are doing just that …

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Posted in News | Tagged | 8 Comments
Mark Pack

Why should the lesbian, gay, bisexual and trans (LGB&T) community vote Liberal Democrat?

By Mark Pack | Mon 19th April 2010 - 4:20 pm

That’s the question asked by the Lesbian & Gay Foundation and answered by the party’s Equalities spokesperson, Lynne Featherstone:

How do you feel about Labour taking credit for a lot of Liberal Democrat Policy around LGB&T issues?

Imitation is the highest form of flattery! But Labour still hasn’t gone far enough. It is an absolute scandal that Labour chose not to explicitly outlaw gay bullying in schools. As a result thousands of younger gay people do not have full protection from bullying they need.

Labour enjoy a pretty good record on LGB&T rights. How would the Liberal Democrats go further

…

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Posted in News | Tagged and | 17 Comments
Mark Pack

Help Linda Jack defeat Nadine Dorries

By Mark Pack | Mon 19th April 2010 - 3:20 pm

Linda Jack needs at 12% swing to beat Nadine Dorries in Mid-Bedfordshire. That’s a tough target – but by no means impossible (see seats such as Hornsey & Wood Green last time), especially given the party’s poll boost in recent days. To turn the possibility into reality Linda’s campaign needs more funds to help run an even more intensive grassroots effort in the second half of the campaign:

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

According to the Daily Mail, I’m a foreigner

By Mark Pack | Mon 19th April 2010 - 11:20 am

Given the Mail on Sunday’s story casting aspertions on Nick Clegg for not being properly British in their eyes (“His wife is Spanish, his mother Dutch, his father half-Russian and his spin doctor German. Is there ANYTHING British about Lib Dem leader Nick Clegg?”) now seems a good time to revive a post I wrote on a previous occasion when the Mail took to defining British:

As Sunder Katwala has pointed out, the Daily Mail has said it thinks it is a mistake for people who were born here but whose parents where born overseas to be counted as

…

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Posted in Op-eds | Tagged , and | 17 Comments
Mark Pack

How do people really think?

By Mark Pack | Mon 19th April 2010 - 10:20 am

The last edition of ALDC’s Campaigner before the start of the election contained this piece from me:

Knowing why people vote the way they do is tough. It’s not just because people may be reluctant to be honest to others about their motivations, but people are also often bad at understanding themselves.

In fact, one of the findings increasingly coming out from research into how we make decisions is that often we make a decision using our subconscious and only afterwards come up with a justification for it. Our subconscious decides, our conscious rationalises.

It is an intriguing – and in some ways, scary – finding that is best illustrated by a clever experiment where people were shown two photographs of similar, but different, people. They were asked to pick which one they thought was the most attractive. They were then given that photograph and asked to explain the reason for their decision.

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Posted in Op-eds | Tagged , and | 4 Comments
Mark Pack

Well, here’s an unusual tactic from a Conservative candidate…

By Mark Pack | Mon 19th April 2010 - 9:10 am

“Let’s vote LD” – from the Twitter feed of George Hollingbery, the Conservative candidate for Meon Valley:

George Hollingbery - Twitter screenshot

Posted in General Election | Tagged , and | 3 Comments
Mark Pack

Election timetable: this week’s deadlines

By Mark Pack | Mon 19th April 2010 - 9:00 am

The deadlines coming up this week are:

  • Deadline for submitting electoral registration request in order to be able to vote at the election: Tuesday 20 April
  • Close of nominations for general election: 4pm on Tuesday 20 April
  • Deadline for appointment of election agents for general election: 4pm on Tuesday 20 April
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Posted in Election law | Tagged | Leave a comment
Mark Pack

Believe in Fairness

By Mark Pack | Sun 18th April 2010 - 9:24 pm

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Posted in General Election and Lib Dem TV | 5 Comments
Mark Pack

“Rising stars face questions on Tory community work”

By Mark Pack | Sun 18th April 2010 - 7:19 pm

From The Times:

Two Tory rising stars fighting marginal seats in David Cameron’s West London backyard face embarrassment over their community projects, lauded by the Tory leader as models for his vision of a “Big Society”.

The Charity Commission has issued guidance to Joanne Cash after concerns were raised about her use of the word “charitable” to describe a social action project run and funded by her Conservative Association…

Shaun Bailey, candidate in neighbouring Hammersmith, faces scrutiny from the commission after an independent examiner discovered £16,000 worth of unreceipted expenditure in the charity he runs.

You can read the full story here.

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Mark Pack

Conservative in trouble over fake names on tax letter

By Mark Pack | Sun 18th April 2010 - 3:50 pm

The Courier (covering Tayside and Fife) reports:

THE WRATH of the Perthshire business community came down on Perth and North Perthshire’s Tory General Election candidate Peter Lyburn yesterday after he used names on an open letter without permission, The Courier can reveal.

One of the prominent business people who feels “used” is Perthshire Chamber of Commerce president Paul Shields.

A letter, sent to The Courier and other newspapers on Thursday by Mr Lyburn, was critical of Labour’s planned 1% rise in National Insurance and supported Conservative plans to thwart it…

Mr Shields declared, “I haven’t seen an open letter. I haven’t signed an

…

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Mark Pack

The LSE wants your leaflets

By Mark Pack | Sun 18th April 2010 - 1:20 pm

A quick message from one of my old places of work, the London School of Economics:

On the campaign trail: help LSE build our election collections

The London School of Economics Archive is collecting election addresses and publicity materials produced by parliamentary candidates in the run-up to May’s general election. Please send them to us at:

Freepost RSHB-UHHY-RTSG
Archives and Rare Books
LSE Library
10 Portugal Street
London WC2A 2HD

The LSE Library has been collecting general election ephemera in this way since 1945. We now hold over 15,000 items covering the whole of the UK which includes material from minority parties and independents as well as the …

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Posted in General Election | 1 Comment
Mark Pack

Two Conservative problems: Iain Duncan Smith and Boris Johnson

By Mark Pack | Sun 18th April 2010 - 11:50 am

There’s no doubt that many Tories are itching to shout “soft on criminals! soft on immigrants!” at the Liberal Democrats over the next few days.

One slight problem with the targets of choice: the Lib Dem policies on prison sentences and tackling the problem of illegal immigration. You see, those shouts of outrage should also be directed at Iain Duncan Smith (that well known soggy liberal who believes short prison sentences should be scrapped), not to mention notorious left-winger Boris Johnson (who believes in earned routes to citizenship for illegal immigrants).

I’m sure that will happen. Of course. No doubt about it.

Posted in General Election | Tagged and | 1 Comment
Mark Pack

Daily View: the poster special

By Mark Pack | Sun 18th April 2010 - 9:00 am

Here’s a better way to spend a few minutes than reading my Sunday morning post.

Take this window poster, print it off (preferably on a colour printer) and stick it in your window.

(Why? Because the more people see that friends and neighbours support Nick Clegg and the Liberal Democrats, the more they are likely to do so themselves.)

Then help spread the message by sending a tweet or setting your Facebook status along these lines:

People are flocking to #LibDems. Help keep it going with poster at http://bit.ly/libdemposter – print off + stick up! #iagreewithnick

Hat-tip: Stuart Bonar

Posted in Daily View | 3 Comments
Mark Pack

Poll surge continues: is this 2003 or 1974?

By Mark Pack | Sat 17th April 2010 - 8:22 pm

“I will only really believe it when I see it in print!” – so read a text message to me from one of the party’s senior campaign strategists after news started spreading about the latest poll:

BPIX/Mail on Sunday: Lib Dem 32%, Conservative 31%, Labour 28%
ComRes/Independent/Mirror: Conservative 31%, Lib Dem 29%, Labour 27%
ICM/Sunday Telegraph: Conservative 34%, Labour 29%, Lib Dem 27%
OnePoll/People: Lib Dem 33%, Conservative 27%, Labour 23%
YouGov/Sunday Times: Conservative 33%, Labour 30%, Lib Dem 29%

The YouGov poll gives Nick Clegg the eye-watering personal ratings on doing well/badly as party leader of 81% versus 9%. At the height of the Iraq …

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Posted in General Election and Polls | Tagged and | 46 Comments
Mark Pack

Welcome to the new bloggers…

By Mark Pack | Sat 17th April 2010 - 6:20 pm

Four 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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Mark Pack

Daily Mail: big boost for Lib Dems in poll – but editorial line even more striking

By Mark Pack | Sat 17th April 2010 - 9:16 am

There’s straight-forward good news for the Liberal Democrats in today’s Daily Mail:

A Harris poll for the Daily Mail, the first in-depth survey of the public response, showed him decisively ahead of David Cameron and Gordon Brown on measures of energy, honesty and strength.

The survey of over 1,000 people who watched the clash found 32 per cent intended to back Mr Clegg’s LibDems – level with the Tories – and just 26 per cent Labour.

Those poll results are dramatic – and reflect what we’ve seen in other polls too. But most striking is the Daily Mail’s …

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Posted in General Election | Tagged , and | 29 Comments
Mark Pack

YouGov puts Lib Dems second, all three parties within margin of error

By Mark Pack | Fri 16th April 2010 - 10:16 pm

Time to say, “Oh sod it” to the usual rule on The Voice of not reporting individual polls on headline voting intentions:

Conservative: 33%
Liberal Democrat: 30%
Labour: 28%
Others: 9%

Fieldwork: 15-16 April.

The last time the party was this high in the polls was after Sarah Teather’s victory in the Brent East by-election, when YouGov made it C32, L31, LD30 and ICM had all three parties tied on 31%.

The next round of phone calls between party press officers and the media could be quite fun. What was that about giving the third-placed party less media coverage?

Of course, in the past poll surges have …

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Posted in General Election and Polls | Tagged , and | 20 Comments
Mark Pack

First election debate: winners and losers

By Mark Pack | Fri 16th April 2010 - 9:35 pm

Now the dust is starting to settle after the first debate, who are the winners and losers – aside from the party leaders?

Winner – liberalism
Loser – hostility to foreigners

Praising some aspects of immigration, talking about no like-for-like replacement of Trident, pledging to scrap tuition fees, promising to cut taxes for most by raising taxes for the very rich – Nick Clegg won the debate not by abandoning policies for some  mushy middle ground, but by sticking to core liberal beliefs. Those beliefs were carefully wrapped in language and arguments designed to be appeal to a wide audience – but …

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Posted in General Election and Op-eds | Tagged , , , , , and | 2 Comments
Mark Pack

Clegg commits to Digital Economy Act repeals

By Mark Pack | Fri 16th April 2010 - 9:14 pm

Doing the rounds of online news today has been Nick Clegg’s opposition to the Digital Economy Act:

Lib Dems will call for repeal of Digital Economy Act
Nick Clegg outlines fears over controversial new laws

The phrase “repeal the Digital Economy Act/Bill” has become a bit of a shorthand, often being used to mean “repeal the controversial bits” – either as a piece of verbal shorthand or because so much attention has focused on those parts that people using the phrase aren’t aware there is rather more to the Act. So I’ve double-checked Nick’s full views and they do draw the sensible distinction:

It

…

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Posted in News | Tagged and | 9 Comments
Mark Pack

Agree with Nick, too? Here’s 4 things you can do today #iagreewithnick

By Mark Pack | Fri 16th April 2010 - 10:10 am

You’ve watched the debate, you’ve heard Nick Clegg, and like millions of others you like what you saw and heard. But what next?

Here are four simple things you can do to help turn Nick’s words into
actions that bring about real change and make Britain fairer:

1. Join the Liberal Democrats:

Politics isn’t about one man bands: Nick Clegg and Vince Cable need a strong team behind them supporting their work.

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Posted in General Election | Tagged and | 7 Comments
Mark Pack

Dear Michael Gove…

By Mark Pack | Fri 16th April 2010 - 7:56 am

Dear Michael,

You’re in the news today saying that the “novelty” of Nick Clegg will wear off when his policies come under further scrutiny.

Guess you must have missed last night’s TV debate then, with the two occasions when David Cameron directly put Liberal Democrat policies under scrutiny and said they wouldn’t work.

Only thing is, on both occasions – how to fund taking millions out of income tax and how to have a regionally based immigration system – Nick Clegg straight away responded with a detailed answer covering all of Cameron’s points.

And in both cases that response silenced Cameron on the point …

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Posted in News | Tagged , and | 8 Comments
Mark Pack

Social media’s impact on political reporting

By Mark Pack | Thu 15th April 2010 - 5:20 pm

At the weekend I did a session for the Radio Academy on social media, journalism and the general election.

Here it is as a podcast – so enjoy!

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

The steady march of the Liberal Democrats

By Mark Pack | Thu 15th April 2010 - 4:24 pm

Here is the latest poll figure from each polling company for the Lib Dems, compared with the figure in its first poll in March (excluding those companies without a recent poll or who didn’t poll in March):

Angus Reid: 18%, 22% (+4)
BPIX: 18%, 20% (+2)
ComRes: 20%, 21% (+1)
Harris: 18%, 23% (+5)
ICM: 18%, 20% (+2)
Opinium: 16%, 17% (+1)
Populus: 21%, 21% (nc)
YouGov: 16%, 18% (+2)

And some good news from the Lib Dem – Tory marginals in the marginals poll run in today’s Telegraph:

The poll found that the Tories would pick up 74 of the 100 seats from Labour. However, they would not

…

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Posted in Polls | Tagged and | 1 Comment
Mark Pack

Nick Clegg on tackling poverty around the world

By Mark Pack | Thu 15th April 2010 - 1:50 pm

Nick Clegg has done an interview and video clip for ONE Vote 2010, a campaign group “committed to the fight against extreme poverty and preventable disease, particularly in Africa”.

Here’s a sample:

What would you do to secure a global climate deal that helps people living in poverty? Would you ensure that climate funding is additional to current and promised aid flows?

The Liberal Democrats have long been at the forefront of the environmental agenda and have a record of campaigning for ambitious action on the environment and climate change. At the heart of our thinking on climate change is the belief that

…

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Mark Pack

Two councillors accused of breaking election law; one political party investigated

By Mark Pack | Thu 15th April 2010 - 12:20 pm

A quick round-up of stories in the news recently:

In January 2010 the Electoral Commission, the independent party finance watchdog, began a case review following concerns raised in the independent auditor’s opinion about the adequacy of the 2008 statement of accounts of the British National Party.

The case has now become an investigation. However, it is important to note – particularly during an election period – that no conclusion has been reached and therefore no assumption should be made as to whether a breach of the rules has occurred. (Electoral Commission)

A CONSERVATIVE councillor has been suspended and is due in

…

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Mark Pack

“Liberal Democrats lead on liberty” – Henry Porter

By Mark Pack | Thu 15th April 2010 - 11:20 am

Henry Porter writes in The Guardian:

By far the best undertakings on liberty come in the Liberal Democrat manifesto, which is hardly surprising, given that it has been stalwart in its defence of liberty under all three of its leaders since the last election. Nick Clegg’s attack on Labour’s authoritarian streak is especially welcome and will be significant if there is a hung parliament on May 7, which – astonishingly – is what 32% of voters desire.

The party will introduce a freedom bill, regulate CCTV, reduce local council surveillance, restore the right to protest, protect free speech, offer guarantees to investigative

…

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Mark Pack

A graphical demonstration of just how broken our electoral system is

By Mark Pack | Thu 15th April 2010 - 10:20 am

I’ve blogged before about how if you are under 40, nearly half the seats in the country have never changed hands since you were born. That isn’t a system that gives real power to people’s votes. Nor is it a system in which MPs are held accountable for their behaviour.

Now this great map has been put together illustrating the point (click on map for larger version):

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Posted in News | Tagged and | 1 Comment
Mark Pack

Here comes the debate worm

By Mark Pack | Thu 15th April 2010 - 9:20 am

I’ve written previously about my expectation that we’d see a worm grace the stage during the televised party leader debates. However, whilst I speculated about the worm being in Channel 4’s charge, looking to a traditional TV broadcast was just too old school of me. In fact, there will be a worm – but it’s a Facebook worm. As their news release explains:

With Britain’s first ever prime ministerial debate taking place on Thursday, Facebook’s 23 million UK users are being invited to participate in a mass “dial test” which will enable them rate the debates in real time and

…

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Posted in General Election | Tagged | 3 Comments
Mark Pack

Lib Dem general election manifesto: round-up of our coverage

By Mark Pack | Wed 14th April 2010 - 7:50 pm

The launch of a party’s general election manifesto is a big story, so we’ve been covering it in a series of posts here on The Voice in the last 24 hours. If you’re just catching up on our coverage now, here’s a summary of the posts:

…

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Posted in General Election and Party policy and internal matters | Tagged , and | 5 Comments
Mark Pack

Say goodbye to broken promises: the first Lib Dem election broadcast

By Mark Pack | Wed 14th April 2010 - 6:06 pm

Here it is:

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Posted in Lib Dem TV | Tagged | 28 Comments
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