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

A little fact Iain Dale didn’t mention

By Mark Pack | Sat 13th March 2010 - 8:11 am

If you’ve read Iain’s post about Anna Arrowsmith “The LibDem Candidate Who Supports Labour” there’s one little detail you won’t have seen. The shocking piece of text saying that Anna Arrrowsmith supports Labour is … six years old. Yes verily, it’s shocking news that the party has selected as a candidate someone who was a Labour supporter six years ago 🙂

Hat-tip and further details: this comment from Alex Macfie

Posted in News | Tagged and | 4 Comments
Mark Pack

Female MPs: how’s the party doing?

By Mark Pack | Fri 12th March 2010 - 4:54 pm

We’ve twice covered the question of gender balance in (Westminster) politics in recent days with the challenge from the Fawcett Society What about women? and Dinti Batstone’s call to Make politics fit women’s lives, not vice-versa.

With party conference in Birmingham about to start, we now have the latest figures on how the party is doing at getting a less male-dominated Parliamentary party. The Campaign for Gender Balance reports:

  • Winnable seats: approximately 40% of our most winnable seats have women PPCs.
  • Held seats: 4 out of the 8 seats that have MPs standing down have selected women.

The last point is particularly important as, …

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Mark Pack

What happens to MPs’ websites when Parliament is dissolved?

By Mark Pack | Fri 12th March 2010 - 2:50 pm

There was a little flurry of interest last year as to whether MPs with “MP” in their Twitter name would face a problem after Parliament is officially dissolved for the general election. That’s because after that point technically no-one is an MP and you’re not allowed to call yourself an MP if you aren’t one. That story was rather over-played though it did spur me to dig out quite what the sanctions would be, which in turns out isn’t that simple a question to answer.

But what about MPs’ websites and text on them saying they are an MP? That is potentially …

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

Tom Baldwin and the “triple lock”: you could have read it here Tom

By Mark Pack | Fri 12th March 2010 - 2:12 pm

Today Tom Baldwin in The Times reports on its exciting persistent investigative journalism into the party’s “triple lock” rule for deals with other parties:

The exact wording of this rule, disclosed only after repeated inquiries to Liberal Democrats headquarters this week, sets a high bar for clearing “any substantial proposal which could affect the party’s independence of political action”.

A pedant would point out that it was “disclosed” here back in November. Then it was Steve Richards I took to task (for calling the rule – which was debated in public at party conference – “secret”).

Perhaps you should add us …

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Mark Pack

Nick Clegg’s conference speech: what does it need to do? #ldconf

By Mark Pack | Fri 12th March 2010 - 10:20 am

With the Liberal Democrat spring conference in Birmingham this weekend, Nick Clegg is giving his last conference speech before the general election. Who knows, there may even be two general elections before he gets to give his autumn conference speech…

So what does Nick need to achieve with his Sunday speech?

Conference speeches have two audiences: the external and the internal. For the external one, the job is in the main fairly straightforward: give a speech that has at least one eye-catching section which means it gets more than a nano second of passing media coverage.

The party’s overall messages for the general election …

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

Is this a Google Street View first?

By Mark Pack | Thu 11th March 2010 - 9:59 pm

Take a look at this. To you it may be a smudge, but to the eagled-eyed politico it’s Google Street View showing a political campaign poster (for the Burnley Liberal Democrats’ campaign to save the local hospital). Is this the first time a political campaign poster has been caught on Google Street View?

Posted in Online politics | Tagged and | 10 Comments
Mark Pack

For the love of chocolate, if you’re going to take an action photo read this

By Mark Pack | Thu 11th March 2010 - 8:32 pm

Now, don’t get me wrong.

I like photos of potholes. Or even empty pavements.

I like photos of candidates.

I like photos of candidates and potholes.

Looking glum or not.

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Mark Pack

Nick Clegg’s Lib Dem conference Q+A #ldconf

By Mark Pack | Thu 11th March 2010 - 4:50 pm

In addition to his speech on Sunday, Nick Clegg is doing a Q+A session on Saturday at the Liberal Democrat spring conference in Birmingham – and this time with an added online twist:

Straight after he comes off stage, he’s keen to answer questions sent in from people who are unable to attend the conference.

When: 13 March at 15.25

Where: Online, answers will be posted on his website, Facebook and Tweeted shortly after.

How to take part: Post your …

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Mark Pack

What happens if you fail to include an imprint in an online advert?

By Mark Pack | Thu 11th March 2010 - 3:20 pm

One for the techno-legal-political geeks amongst us (hello? anyone still there…?).

Last year when writing about the issues with online imprint rules in the UK I made reference to Florida where:

the Florida Election Commission has banned the use of Google Ads because they necessarily do not include the Florida equivalent of an election imprint – as there isn’t enough room. That ruling is being contested, and may yet trigger a change in the law but it shows the risk of doing nothing and hoping all will come out okay.

The ruling was indeed contested and it was decided that the candidate …

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

Why Vote? Book review

By Mark Pack | Thu 11th March 2010 - 1:20 pm

Why Vote? by Jo Phillips and David Seymour is one in a series just published by biteback. Whilst the others promote voting for a particular party, such as the Liberal Democrat title reviwed here, this book is simply about encouraging people to take part in elections. It takes a rather curious approach because, as the book itself explains:

wants to persuade you to vote but gives dozens of very good reasons why you shouldn’t.

On the positive side, it should give you a few laughs and provide enough trivial information to amaze your friends … What we hope it might do is persuade you to influence how the country is run.

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Posted in Books | Tagged and | 2 Comments
Mark Pack

Make authoritarian MPs pay at the ballot box

By Mark Pack | Wed 10th March 2010 - 10:03 pm

There’s only one place to be at 8pm on Friday. It’s in Hall 8b at the Birmingham ICC for the latest in the legendary series of Lib Dem Voice fringe meetings*:

Many MPs have a record of repeatedly voting for authoritarian measures in Parliament. But will they suffer for that at the ballot box?

Come and hear how we can make authoritarian votes in Parliament a vote loser for MPs on general election day – and see the new Liberal Democrat Voice website which will help do just that.

Speakers:
Paul Burstow MP (Chief Whip)
Bridget Fox (PPC Islington South and Finsbury)
Mark Pack (Co-editor, Lib Dem Voice)
Alex Wilcock (Former Vice-Chair, Federal Policy Committee)

Chair: Helen Duffett (PPC Romford, Lib Dem Voice Contributing Editor)

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

General election timetable: 6 May 2010

By Mark Pack | Wed 10th March 2010 - 6:05 pm

Today’s setting of the budget for 24 March means it’s all but certain that the general election will be on 6 May, the date of the scheduled local elections. What that means in terms of deadlines for nominations, applying for postal votes and so on is detailed in this general and local elections 2010 timetable I’ve put together.

Posted in Election law and General Election | 3 Comments
Mark Pack

Power2010 ups its local campaigning

By Mark Pack | Wed 10th March 2010 - 3:45 pm

When I covered the results of the Power2010 consultation on what political reforms it should promote, there was a brief discussion on this site and elsewhere about whether Power2010 would have the campaigning muscle to really make an impact.

Today brings news of how Power2010 is trying to ensure that. Their news release says:

MPs were put on notice today as democracy group Power2010 announced its plans to target those MPs who have consistently opposed cleaning up and reforming our political system.

The Power2010 campaign, which has received almost £1 million from the Rowntree Trusts and now has paid organisers across the

…

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Posted in News | Tagged and | 3 Comments
Mark Pack

Official: records that would show full extent of Ashcroft donations have been destroyed

By Mark Pack | Wed 10th March 2010 - 9:50 am

Hundreds of local records which would reveal the extent of Lord Ashcroft’s donations to Conservative Party candidates during the crucial last few weeks of the 2005 general election campaign have been destroyed the Electoral Commission has confirmed.

Although the Electoral Commission publishes records of donations made to political parties, donations made specifically to individual candidates during an election campaign are recorded separately.

Those separate records are submitted with candidates’ election expense return forms and stored locally after an election before subsequently being destroyed by the local council. The Electoral Commission also takes in copies of all these returns for its national analysis …

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Posted in Election law | Tagged and | 3 Comments
Mark Pack

Pro-Lib Dem bias at the BBC shocker

By Mark Pack | Tue 9th March 2010 - 10:51 pm

Of course, I read that caption from earlier today as a mark of praise rather than of exasperation:

Chris Huhne on BBC TV

Posted in Humour | Tagged and | 4 Comments
Mark Pack

How good is Ashcroft’s marginal seats operation?

By Mark Pack | Tue 9th March 2010 - 8:24 pm

With the question of how well Lord Ashcroft’s marginal seats campaign for the Conservatives really is doing back in the news, now seems a good time to remind people of this which I wrote in 2007:

How good is Ashcroft?

Well, here’s his own account of his record supporting target seats at the 2005 general election:

The national swing from Labour to Conservatives was 3.2 per cent, yet the swing in the seats which we supported was 3.8 per cent.
Dirty Politics, Dirty Times by Michael Ashcroft, p.296

You read that right: by his own admission, all his expertise and money achieved was a

…

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Posted in News | Tagged and | 3 Comments
Mark Pack

Rejoice, rejoice, we have the answer to stock market problems: buy in some windbreaks

By Mark Pack | Tue 9th March 2010 - 2:20 pm

The following quote is a genuine quote from an academic journal. Oh yes.

Why have I thought necessary to mention that?

Well, it’s about the stock market.

And how windy the weather is.

And how stocks go up or down depending on how windy it is.

Not just the stocks of windbreak or heating/cooling firms.

All stocks.

Yes indeed:

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Posted in News | Tagged | 2 Comments
Mark Pack

Election2010: excellent new elections blog

By Mark Pack | Tue 9th March 2010 - 9:40 am

I’ve certainly criticised academics a few times for not really getting political campaigning – and so spending time looking in the wrong place (such as in my post on internet campaigning) but one exception to that certainly is Phil Cowley of Nottingham University. So it’s not a great surprise that the new Election 2010 blog run by him and colleagues is looking very good, with a regular feed of relevant content – but also content that isn’t simply duplicating what is elsewhere.

You can take a look at Election2010.blogspot.com.

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

Well done, Evening Standard

By Mark Pack | Mon 8th March 2010 - 10:52 pm

A quick update to my post which pointed out how the media had comprehensively misreported findings about how many people are registered to vote, painting an unduly pessimistic picture. The Evening Standard at least has now corrected its report.

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Mark Pack

Election purdah period: what can and can’t be done?

By Mark Pack | Mon 8th March 2010 - 6:15 pm

The legal firm Wragge & Co have put together a useful guide:

‘Purdah’ is a political convention, which formally applies to government ministers and civil servants in central government during the period immediately before a general election.

During a period of purdah, ministers and civil servants will refrain from taking decisions or making policy announcements which are significant and may be politically contentious.

But what does that mean in practice? Go and read the guide to find out. Short version: the laws and rules aren’t that clear. If in doubt ask a lawyer. Surprising that from a law firm 🙂

Posted in News | 2 Comments
Mark Pack

Race Equality and the Liberal Democrats

By Mark Pack | Mon 8th March 2010 - 2:50 pm

That’s the title of a pamphlet from Liberal Democrat Equality Spokesperson Lynne Featherstone and published by the Runnymede Trust.

It starts:

Over half of Bangladeshi, Pakistani and Black African children in the UK are growing up in poverty. Infant mortality is more than twice as high among Pakistani and Caribbean groups than white British children. Almost every ethnic minority group earns less than white British workers in the same profession.

These are some of the problems that underline the need for a real, long-term solution to alleviate the vast inequalities faced by Britain’s minority ethnic groups.

The problems that face ethnic minority groups today are substantial, but what do the Liberal Democrats propose can be done to address them?

The answers include the name-blank employment policy pioneered by Lynne (to avoid subconscious bias at early stages in the recruitment process) and are laid out in the pamphlet, which you can read in full here:

Race Equality And The Liberal Democrats

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Posted in Party policy and internal matters | Tagged and | 1 Comment
Mark Pack

How did newspapers do at reporting their own polls? (February update)

By Mark Pack | Mon 8th March 2010 - 12:50 pm

This year we’ve tracking each month how good newspapers are at reporting their own political opinion polls. Getting your own story right isn’t perhaps the highest of bars to set newspapers, but on past experience it’s one they often seem to miss. But what’s the actual evidence? Who does best? Who does worst?

In order to provide answers, each time a newspaper publishes a political opinion poll we’re giving the report a score out of 30 based on how accurate the report is and whether it meets the British Polling Council’s own rules for political polling. (For details of the scoring …

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Mark Pack

Why vote Liberal Democrat? Book review

By Mark Pack | Sun 7th March 2010 - 7:00 pm

If you go to Amazon searching for “Why vote Liberal Democrat?”, edited by Danny Alexander and just published  by Biteback, you may be surprised to find yourself being presented instead with a book of the same title from 1997, written by William Wallace. The new book is misfiled by Amazon under the title “Why vote Lib Dem?” but actually the 1997 volume provides an interesting contrast with the 2010 version.

The 2010 book is one of a series, covering also Labour, Conservatives, SNP, Plaid and the Greens. All the others are single person authored books (with the exception of …

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Posted in Books, General Election and Party policy and internal matters | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , and | 19 Comments
Mark Pack

Lucy Care and Lara Croft

By Mark Pack | Sun 7th March 2010 - 6:20 pm

Not a combination I’d expected to put in a headline, especially as wrestling with recalcitrant letter boxes, RISOs or activists isn’t quite in the Lara Croft style, but courtesy of the BBC we have:

A new £36.2m Derby road is to be named after computer game and movie character Lara Croft following a public vote.

The star of the Tomb Raider franchise was originally devised by a computer game developer based in the city.

More than 27,000 people took part in the vote to name the Osmaston Road to Burton Road stretch of the new route, with 89% opting for Lara Croft Way…

Councillor Lucy

…

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

UKIP expel MEP in dispute over ‘extremist’ links

By Mark Pack | Sun 7th March 2010 - 10:20 am

This week The Times reported of Nikki Sinclaire:

The UK Independence Party has expelled one of its MEPs after she refused to sit with its right-wing Italian allies in the European Parliament and fell out with former leader Nigel Farage…

Ms Sinclaire, 41, an MEP for the West Midlands, insisted that she wanted to stay with the party but would not join UKIP’s alliance in Strasbourg with the “extremist” Northern League of Italy. She has also said that she lost faith in Mr Farage because of his “personal animosity” towards her…

UKIP has a track record for losing MEPs, having entered the

…

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

Daily View 2×2 6 March: featuring Iraq, how parties are campaigning and the best pothole photo EVER

By Mark Pack | Sun 7th March 2010 - 9:00 am

It’s Sunday. It’s 9am. It’s time for the best pothole photo, ever. FACT. But first, some other stuff.

2 Must-Read Blog Posts

What are other Liberal Democrat bloggers saying? Here are two posts that have caught the eye from the Liberal Democrat Blogs aggregator:

Spotted any other great posts in the last day from blogs that aren’t on the aggregator? Do post up a comment sharing them with us all.

2 Big Stories

Brown ‘disingenuous over war funds’

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Posted in Daily View | Tagged , and | 1 Comment
Mark Pack

Was the Iraq war illegal?

By Mark Pack | Sat 6th March 2010 - 10:20 am

STV reports:

Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg says that the Chilcot Inquiry into the Iraq War has provided enough information to suggest that the war was illegal.

Speaking on Radio Tay on Friday morning at the same time Prime Minister Gordon Brown was facing questions at the inquiry in London, he said: “I’m not a lawyer, but my view is that now there is sufficient evidence to sustain the claim that this was illegal.”

“A Dutch inquiry into the Iraq war came to the conclusion that it was indeed illegal, and flew in the face of international law…

“It is not a court of

…

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Posted in News | Tagged , , , , and | 4 Comments
Mark Pack

The Ashcroft affair: will the biggest political fallout be in the marginals?

By Mark Pack | Sat 6th March 2010 - 9:40 am

So far, it’s true to say, that despite heavy negative coverage for the Conservative Party day after day about Lord Ashcroft, there hasn’t been much sign of damage to the Conservatives in the opinion polls.

In some ways that reflects the degree to which the issue plays to natural political cleavages: is doing everything you can within the law to avoid paying taxes acceptable? Plenty of Conservatives will answer “yes”, so discovering quite what lengths Ashcroft went to – and the fact of him being a Parliamentarian – doesn’t really damage their view of the party.

But there are three reasons to believe …

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

The Saturday Debate: what’s wrong with treatments that act like placebos?

By Mark Pack | Sat 6th March 2010 - 8:55 am

Here’s your starter for ten as we continue our new Saturday slot posing a view for debate:

In the lively discussion about homeopathy and placebos following an earlier op-ed piece several people made comments about treatments which rely purely on the placebo effect such as: “If a placebo works and is safe and cheap, why on earth should we stop funding it?”

The more general issue of placebos was raised by Lynne Featherstone in an op-ed back in early 2008:

The placebo effect is seen when people are given treatment, such as pills, where the psychological impact of thinking that the

…

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Posted in Op-eds | Tagged , and | 22 Comments
Mark Pack

No panic here, nothing to see, move along

By Mark Pack | Fri 5th March 2010 - 9:14 pm

Two different stories today, unconnected in one way but both – particularly when put together – speaking volumes for the current state of the Conservative Party. Obviously, panic or disagreements are in no way involved. Not at all.

First we have ConservativeHome’s take on the party starting to use YouGov in addition to Populus:

Up until now now the Cameron team has had only Populus telling them what the outside world was thinking. The intelligence from Populus was brought to them by the same team who run operations in the party’s marginal seats. In other words our marginal seats operation wasn’t

…

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