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

TV debates: some clues to likely political impact

By Mark Pack | Fri 9th April 2010 - 4:20 pm

The latest ICM poll for The Guardian gives some pointers:

  • Very high viewing figures: 29% say they will watch all three and a further 31% say they will watch one or two
  • Even higher viewing figures amongst older people (and older people are more likely to vote): 23% of 18-24 say they will watch all three, but this rises to 40% of the 65+
  • Women are less likey to watch the debates (important as Lib Dem swing voters are usually disproportionately female): 42% say they will watch none compared to 35% of men

The last point may be influenced by childcare responsibilities as …

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

Well fancy that! Another unreported poll finding

By Mark Pack | Fri 9th April 2010 - 3:50 pm

Continuing my occasional series of opinion poll results that newspapers have paid for but then not published (all for reasons of space you understand, nothing to do with editorial lines and not liking the result, oh no of course not) we have the latest YouGov poll for The Sun:

Do you think the following will or will not happen if the Conservatives win the coming election?

The number of crimes committed each year will fall: 22% will, 47% will not – net -25%
The quality of education in state schools will improve: 25% will, 46% will not – net -21%
Britain’s economy will …

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

Labour campaigning takes an unusual turn

By Mark Pack | Fri 9th April 2010 - 3:19 pm

Across the country, election address leaflets from the Labour Party have been dropping through letterboxes – even though the general election campaign has not yet formally started.

These leaflets – delivered free for candidates by the Royal Mail – usually only appear during the campaign itself as candidates make use of the free service which delivers one leaflet from each candidate to each voter.

However, Labour has made use of the special provision which allows leaflets to be delivered earlier, provided the party commits to paying the postage if the candidate in them ends up not being the party’s candidate at the …

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Posted in Election law and General Election | Tagged | 9 Comments
Mark Pack

Brown: Vote Lib Dem where Labour can’t win

By Mark Pack | Fri 9th April 2010 - 3:11 pm

That’s the headline over on Politics.co.uk:

Voters should support the Liberal Democrats in constituencies where Labour cannot win, Gordon Brown has indicated, further fuelling speculation that Labour expects to be unable to form a majority government after polling day.

In an exclusive interview with politics.co.uk the prime minister gave his strongest signal yet that voters should consider tactical voting in order to prevent the Conservatives forming the next government…

“I want everybody to vote Labour and I want people to vote for our party, and I want our vote to be the highest and I want our number of seats to be

…

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Posted in General Election | Tagged | 8 Comments
Mark Pack

Dear Nick Robinson…

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

Dear Nick,

Sorry to be boring and quote things like numbers and evidence.

But on the 10pm news you said, “I think both sides agree the Tories have won the politics of the first week”.

I’d have thought the public should get a look in on this and you know what the public’s verdict is?

By a slim lead (within the margin of error, to be fair) the public says that the Liberal Democrats have run the most impressive campaign so far (see http://ukpollingreport.co.uk/blog/archives/2566).

Makes the idea that the Tories have won the politics look a bit different, I’d have thought?

Yours,

One of those horrible …

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Posted in General Election | Tagged and | 4 Comments
Mark Pack

Election law round-up: counting news and postal vote concerns

By Mark Pack | Fri 9th April 2010 - 12:33 am

The Telegraph has run a story highlighting the number of postal voters who fail to complete the paperwork correctly and so lose their vote:

The Electoral Commission found that five per cent of all postal votes cast were found to be unsafe, because people’s signatures did not match or they gave the wrong date of birth.

Translated nationally this would mean that as many as 240,000 voters – one per cent of all those cast – could be discounted.

Although the word “unsafe” is used, the evidence is that it is innocent mistakes which cause the paperwork to be wrong. For example, …

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Mark Pack

If you ram through a law about illegal copying online…

By Mark Pack | Fri 9th April 2010 - 12:07 am

… the last you thing you want is to be caught red-handed indulging in a bit of, er…, illegal copying online.

Step forward and take a bow: the Labour Party (front bench voted for the Digital Economy Bill)

Followed by a bow please from the Conservative Party (front bench voted for the Digital Economy Bill)

For as The Frontline reports:

Despite months promoting the rights of copyright holders with its Digital Economy Bill, the government has caused something of a furore after revelations that its recently crowdsourced campaign poster has breached copyright laws.

The poster is intended to parody Tory leader David Cameron by

…

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

‘Great wife, not so sure about my Chancellor’: what we learnt today

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

So, what did seeing the General Election campaign on TV today teach us?

1. David Cameron likes being seen with people behind in – continuing the pattern of events “in the round” with audience all around.

2. Gordon Brown likes being seen in front of a plain purple wall – that’s the common Labour backdrop at speeches and press conference, though some wheat got a look in once.

3. Samantha Cameron is doing more campaigning for the TV cameras than George Osborne – a case really of “Great wife, but not so sure about my Chancellor chap” from Cameron’s team.

Posted in General Election | Tagged , , and | Leave a comment
Mark Pack

Test your knowledge of health policies

By Mark Pack | Thu 8th April 2010 - 6:50 pm

The Kings Fund has a fun little online quiz to test how well you know the health policies of the different parties. Good for a few minutes of relief from campaigning: www.kingsfund.org.uk/generalelection2010

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

Online campaigning: confirmation of email’s importance

By Mark Pack | Thu 8th April 2010 - 4:20 pm

I previously covered the Brunel study into how much campaigning is going on around the country, coming to the conclusion that it was “mediocre news for democracy, good news for the Lib Dems”.

Looking at more details of the poll (and thanks to the team for providing them), it’s striking by how widespread email campaigning is.

Of the people who said they were contacted by at least one campaign in February 2010, “mail” (probably including leaflets through the letterbox in the absence of a specific option for that) came out top:

92% received at least one item from Lib Dems, 89% from …

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Mark Pack

Trident: what’s the Lib Dem alternative?

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

Scrapping the Government’s plans for a “like for like” replacement for Trident is one of the most frequently mentioned examples of savings Vince Cable and the Liberal Democrats would make. But what would the party do instead?

Nick Clegg addressed that in his Radio 4 interview yesterday:

What we’re saying is there are a number of options that you could explore in the future… you could equip the Astute submarine. What we’ve done is, I asked Menzies Campbell to look at the range of options and he’s published a number of options simply to make the point which the other parties won’t

…

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Posted in News | Tagged and | 14 Comments
Mark Pack

General election: what have we learnt today?

By Mark Pack | Wed 7th April 2010 - 11:53 pm

After yesterday’s revelations about how the party leaders want to be seen, what did we learn today?

a) We learnt that David Cameron likes bare elbows on TV more than he likes George Osborne (plenty of clips of David Cameron with sleeves rolled up and elbows showing whilst Osborne appeared to be auditioning for the role of Lord Lucan)

b) We learnt that the public think the Liberal Democrats have run the most impressive campaign so far*

c) We learnt that Kevin Maguire doesn’t like being quoted by Zac Goldsmith

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Posted in General Election | Tagged , , , and | 8 Comments
Mark Pack

The Liberal Democrat plans for the NHS

By Mark Pack | Wed 7th April 2010 - 2:50 pm

A few days ago Liberal Democrat spokesman Norman Lamb  (aka the man who beat Iain Dale by 10,606 votes in 2005) kindly gave up some time to be interviewed about the party’s plans for the NHS.

Having previously pointed out that the party’s “four steps to a fairer Britain” doesn’t include how we will improve public services, I started by asking him how the Liberal Democrats would improve the NHS.

He explained that whilst the four steps are a plan to transform Britain, for the NHS the priority over the next few years would be “making sure it doesn’t get destroyed” …

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Posted in Party policy and internal matters | Tagged and | 3 Comments
Mark Pack

Well fancy that! A poll finding you won’t have seen reported

By Mark Pack | Wed 7th April 2010 - 2:02 pm

I’ve commented before on some of the poll findings that papers pay for but then don’t report (all for reasons of space you understand; never because they don’t meet the desired editorial line; not at all; no way).

Here’s another one, courtesy of The Sunday Times and YouGov:

A group of 23 business leaders have written to the Daily Telegraph newspaper backing the Conservative announcement that they will shelve part of next year’s rise in National Insurance. Do you think that the business leaders are…

Speaking out in the country’s interest 18%
Speaking out in their own interest 50%
Both 22%
Don’t know 11%

Pretty …

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Posted in News and Polls | Tagged and | 1 Comment
Mark Pack

Televised Prime Ministerial debates: how to ask a question

By Mark Pack | Wed 7th April 2010 - 9:20 am

From the joint BBC / ITV / Sky news release:

All three debates will be broadcast in mid-evening slots in front of a studio audience selected by ICM. Members of the audience will be able to put questions to Gordon Brown, David Cameron and Nick Clegg directly. Viewers are also able to submit their own questions in advance by email via the addresses below.

Each of the programmes has a pre-determined theme for half of its airtime, with the remaining time open to questions on any election issue.

The First Election Debate will be broadcast on ITV1 on Thursday 15th April …

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Posted in General Election | Tagged | 5 Comments
Mark Pack

How do the media election websites compare? (UPDATED)

By Mark Pack | Tue 6th April 2010 - 11:50 pm

The FT beat me to the punch with a review of the different election websites, so I’ll give my review a slightly different focus: which are best for local information about candidates? And if you are a candidate (or helping a candidate) what online information should you worry about making sure is correct?

BBC:

  • More extensive constituency descriptions that others listed below, but otherwise the constituency pages are surprisingly skimpy by comparison with only very limited election results and candidate information.
  • Some links to BBC news stories where there has been one relevant to the constituency.
  • Uses Thrasher & Rallings for the

…

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Posted in General Election and Online politics | Tagged and | 4 Comments
Mark Pack

General election: what have we learnt so far?

By Mark Pack | Tue 6th April 2010 - 8:17 pm

a) Gordon Brown wants to be seen as a team player (hence massed ranks of Cabinet behind him for election announcement)

b) David Cameron wants to be seen as Barack Obama (hence shirt, rolled up sleeves and people behind him when he speaks!)

c) Nick Clegg wants to be seen with Vince Cable (hence Vince becomes the first non-leader to ever have his picture emblazoned on a party leader’s battlebus)

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

What happens in wash up – and what will happen to the Digital Economy Bill?

By Mark Pack | Tue 6th April 2010 - 12:22 pm

The concept of “wash up” has become subject of greater attention just before the last few general elections, but it’s not nearly as special as descriptions make it sound. What happens is that just before Parliament is dissolved for a general election various pieces of legislation are rushed through rather than be lost and have to start again from scratch after the election. There are no special Parliamentary rules to allow this speedy legislation. Instead, Parliament just has to vote for speedy processes as it can at any other time in the Parliamentary cycle. If you have the votes, you …

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

This is how general elections used to be called

By Mark Pack | Mon 5th April 2010 - 10:17 pm

Somehow I can’t quite imagine a Prime Minister’s election calling soundbite including the phrase “the provisions of the Representation of the People Act” any more. Nor indeed the response of the major parties to an election been called to be having special meetings of senior party figures. None of this modern flying start stuff.

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Posted in General Election | 1 Comment
Mark Pack

A must read site for people following the online general election campaign

By Mark Pack | Mon 5th April 2010 - 7:02 pm

A great new website has just been setup by Rob Fenwick (the founder of Lib Dem Voice and my colleague back in 2005 on the Liberal Democrat internet campaign): Campaign Digest.

It looks like it will become an essential source of information, particularly with its daily snapshots of the front pages of the main party websites – tracking how they change during the campaign – and its archiving of email content from the different campaigns.

Well worth bookmarking and visiting regularly.

Posted in General Election and Online politics | Tagged | 2 Comments
Mark Pack

Social media: heavily used by candidates with best chances of winning

By Mark Pack | Mon 5th April 2010 - 4:20 pm

A ComRes survey of 101 Parliamentary candidates “who are likely to win or retain their seats” has found very heavy use of social media.

Around half the Parliamentary seats in the UK have not changed hands even once between different political parties in the last forty years, which helps explain why overall levels of take-up amongst MPs and candidates is usually on the range modest to quite good (though in fact often compare very well, for example, with large UK firms).

However, as this survey indicates, there are much higher than average levels of take-up amongst those were the election result is …

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Mark Pack

Lib Dems plan rail expansion by cutting road projects

By Mark Pack | Mon 5th April 2010 - 12:20 pm

So reports the BBC:

The Liberal Democrats have set out plans to reopen thousands of miles of railway tracks and stations.

The scheme would be funded by cutting capital spending on roads by £3bn.

Its new Rail Expansion Fund would lead to the biggest expansion of the rail network since the Victorian era, the party claims.

Motorists’ group the RAC Foundation said it would be a waste of taxpayers’ money when only 7% of UK journeys were made by train, compared to 90% by car.

However, Lib Dem transport spokesman Norman Baker said the plan would “make our railway great again”…

Although exact decisions on

…

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Posted in News | Tagged and | 26 Comments
Mark Pack

Opinion poll reporting: The Times does it best, the Daily Mirror the worst

By Mark Pack | Mon 5th April 2010 - 10:20 am

It’s not been a great month for newspapers reporting their own polls. Despite the concept of newspapers accurately reporting their own polls – i.e. a story that they’ve paid for and been given the full details of – being a fairly basic standard to aim for, we’ve had such low lights as the skewed graph in the Mirror along with its over-hyped language and the Sunday Times so twisting the findings of its own poll you’d have thought there must have been two. Not to forget the attack in The Telegraph attack on that dodgy process of …

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Posted in Polls | Tagged | 1 Comment
Mark Pack

Election timetable: this week’s deadlines

By Mark Pack | Mon 5th April 2010 - 9:20 am

Only one deadline coming up this week, but watch out for a batch early next week:

  • Close of nominations for local government election (including parish / town council elections): Noon on Thursday 8 April
  • Proclamation of dissolution / issue of general election writ: Monday 12 April
  • Statement of persons nominated for local government election: Noon on Monday 12 April
  • Receipt of general election writ: (Probable date) Tuesday 13 April
  • Publication of notice of general election: (Probable date) Tuesday 13 April
  • Deadline for withdrawal of nominations for local government election: Noon on Tuesday 13 April
  • Deadline for appointment of election agents for local government election: Noon on

…

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Posted in Election law | Tagged | 1 Comment
Mark Pack

Is Tony Blair illegally exporting private data overseas?

By Mark Pack | Sun 4th April 2010 - 10:19 pm

I’ve previously covered the question of the secret owners behind TonyBlair4Labour.org, not to mention its unfortunate terms and conditions. Meanwhile the Telegraph has reported that the Conservatives have called for an inquiry into whether charity and political data is being mixed up and that the site’s data protection information has been changed since launched.

But there’s another issue I’ve spotted: the site looks to be storing in the US private data given by site visitors. However, the necessary legal steps to allow such data exports have not been taken.

To be more specific: the site’s IP address traces to a server in …

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Posted in Online politics | Tagged | 1 Comment
Mark Pack

How YouTube is being used on the ground in the general election

By Mark Pack | Sun 4th April 2010 - 5:20 pm

Richard Osley as an entertaining piece on his blog titled, “The You Tube War: Hornsey and Wood Green”.

I’m not quite sure what Lynne Featherstone will make of the description of her as an “old aunt” 🙂 Not very gallant of you Richard, but the full description is friendly:

One of the reasons, Featherstone has been a hit locally, it seems, is her obvious knowledge of the area and her apparent interest in even the smallest of issues. She is the interfering old aunt that the fragile Labour council in Haringey must be sick to the back teeth of. Featherstone has after

…

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Posted in Online politics | Tagged , , , , , and | 1 Comment
Mark Pack

Smellie verdict shows shocking lack of accountability in British policing

By Mark Pack | Sun 4th April 2010 - 3:50 pm

That’s the headline on this interesting piece over on the Our Kingdom site:

In the aftermath of the G20 protests many predicted that no sort of justice could be expected from either the Independent Police Complaints commission (IPCC), the courts or the Met when it comes to holding the police force to account.  The recent ruling that Sergeat Delroy Smellie is not guilty of assault for his attack on Nicola Fisher is yet another indication that there is no accountability within British policing.

You can read the full piece here.

Posted in News | Tagged and | 29 Comments
Mark Pack

UKIP caught by Sunday Times investigation into hiding donations

By Mark Pack | Sun 4th April 2010 - 3:22 pm

The Sunday Times reports:

Stuart Agnew, a UKIP MEP, and Lord Pearson of Rannoch, the party’s leader, have told undercover reporters how a real donor’s name could be kept secret by passing tens of thousands of pounds through intermediaries. If carried out, one or more of the suggested methods could have been illegal.

Our disclosures will embarrass UKIP and Pearson, who also told the undercover reporter that some UKIP members were “neanderthals” and described Agnew, 60, as “one of our only really sane MEPs”.

The report goes on to detail how UKIP explored a range of ways for a donor to hide their …

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Posted in Election law | Tagged , and | 1 Comment
Mark Pack

UKIP candidate suspended over racist comments

By Mark Pack | Sun 4th April 2010 - 10:20 am

Community Care reports:

A senior UK Independence Party member has posted a racist comment on Community Care.

In response to a post by Community Care‘s Outside Left blogger on asylum, Paul Wiffen – who is chair of UKIP London and a parliamentary candidate, said:

“You left-wing scum are all the same, wanting to hand our birthright to Romanian gypsies who beat their wives and children into begging and stealing money they can gamble with, Muslim nutters who want to kill us and put us all under medieval Sharia law, the same Africans who sold their Afro-Caribbean brothers into a slavery that Britain was the first to

…

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

Conservative Party candidate quits over “nest of vipers”

By Mark Pack | Sun 4th April 2010 - 9:48 am

Andrew Reeves has the story:

Only the day after David Cameron admitted he does not expect the Conservatives to do well in Scotland, one of his leading candidates has quit the Conservative Party.

In today’s Sunday Herald Heather MacLeod, who has resigned after a “bitter and bloody” feud with fellow Conservatives, said she felt “complete and utter disgust” with a section of the Scottish Conservatives:

She also accused the Scottish party of failing to match leader David Cameron’s progress and said she had concerns about an allegedly inappropriate relationship between two senior Tories.

You can read his full post here.

Posted in News | Tagged , and | 1 Comment
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