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

Don’t be an Edward Everett

By Mark Pack | Thu 7th January 2010 - 10:20 am

Recognise this man?

As you may have guessed from the title of this post, he’s Edward Everett. That’s the man who gave a two hour speech on November 19, 1863. He was followed by a fellow American who gave a mere two and a bit minute speech – otherwise known as Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address.

Lincoln’s brevity (and without PowerPoint) shows how it is possible to communicate major, thoughtful political points whilst being brief. At the more mundane level of your local leaflets and letters, you don’t have to knock …

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Posted in News | Tagged and | 11 Comments
Mark Pack

All aboard the new quango train, Conservative Party style

By Mark Pack | Wed 6th January 2010 - 3:20 pm

Toot toot! Hold tight! Another one coming on board the quango express.

It’s another new quango promised by the Conservatives with, as the Telegraph has reported,

Nick Herbert, shadow minister for farming and environment, promising a farmers’ conference that a future Conservative government will implement the Competition Commission’s recommendation to create an ombudsman to rule on disputes between supermarkets and their suppliers. That is one more quango to add to the already long list: perhaps they should call it Offtrolley.

Ah, you say. But that’s an ok quango. Surely there’s room for a bit of flexibility?

Only problem is, it’s an awful lot …

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

Welcome to tax and spend politics, 1992 style

By Mark Pack | Wed 6th January 2010 - 11:20 am

Unpopular government seeks fourth general election victory in a row in midst of a recession. Sound familiar? Welcome to 1992.

Back then it was the Conservatives in power facing a Labour opposition and David Cameron was working for the Conservative Party, as head of the political section of the Conservative Research Department.

I suspect it’s memories of 1992 that help explain the vagueness of Conservative tax and spend plans this time round. In 1992 the Labour opposition had spelt out its spending commitments in advance in some detail and so, when Chancellor of the Exchequer Norman Lamont sprung a surprise in the …

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

Labour ups election spending by a third as Conservatives make big cuts

By Mark Pack | Tue 5th January 2010 - 10:22 pm

Yup, you read that headline right. For those are the surprising figures from the 2009 European Election expense returns which have just been published.

In 2009 the Conservatives spent £2,482,536 on election expenses for the European elections, just ahead of Labour on £2,302,244 with the Liberal Democrats on £1,180,883.

However, while the Labour figure was up 35% on the 2004 European elections, the Conservatives had cut their spending by 21%. The Liberal Democrat spending was 1% lower.

UKIP spent £1,270,855, a cut of 46%.

In the elections the Conservatives, UKIP and Liberal Democrats each gained a seat while Labour lost five. (Seat change …

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Posted in Election law and Europe / International | Tagged | Leave a comment
Mark Pack

Ten predictions for the general election televised party leader debates

By Mark Pack | Tue 5th January 2010 - 11:40 am

1. Military language will be the order of the day for debate pundits. Fighting to the finish, knock out blows and accounts of who is ahead on points: deploy your military phraseology at dawn.

2. 99% of pundits who have previously expressed support for a party will declare that party’s leader the real winner from each debate – even if the party and leader did not appear in the debate.

3. Each party participating in the debate will say beforehand that its leader is not going to easily best the other leaders – and will say afterwards that its leader did easily …

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Posted in Op-eds | Tagged and | 15 Comments
Mark Pack

Dizzy Thinks for me

By Mark Pack | Mon 4th January 2010 - 7:50 pm

I was going to do a post about the inconsistencies in the Conservative Party’s health manifesto (it’s got something for everyone: more targets, fewer targets; more political control, less political control) but Dizzy Thinks has pretty much written it for me already. So to find out why I’m not  impressed with the Tory plans go and read a Tory blogger.

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

General election prediction: new figures out

By Mark Pack | Sun 3rd January 2010 - 2:40 pm

With new polling figures in, the general election prediction model we covered in November has churned out a new prediction for the next general election:

New prediction: Conservative lead of 9% with 315 seats (11 short of an overall majority)
Previous prediction: Conservative lead of 10% with 322 seats (4 short of an overall majority)

Background to prediction

In November Lib Dem Voice published an exclusive general election prediction, based on the work of a group of academics who have analysed polling data (not just party support levels) in the run up to previous British elections:

Their predictive model works on a three-month lagged structure;

…

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Posted in General Election and News | 11 Comments
Mark Pack

Daily View 2×2: 3 January 2010

By Mark Pack | Sun 3rd January 2010 - 7:00 am

It’s Sunday. It’s 7am. It’s time to learn how to dig a hole, but first the news.

2 Must-Read Blog Posts

What are other Liberal Democrat bloggers saying? Here’s 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

Islamic march plan sparks row in military town

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Mark Pack

Fall-out over Tory selection meeting in Oldham

By Mark Pack | Sat 2nd January 2010 - 2:10 pm

From the Oldham Evening Chronicle:

A selection meeting sparked a huge fall-out amid allegations of threats and candidate rigging.

Oldham East and Saddleworth Conservatives chairman Barbara Jackson will stand down in protest, while former Councillor Chris Shyne called it a farce after only five candidates stood for five seats.

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Posted in News | Tagged and | 8 Comments
Mark Pack

Forthcoming candidate selections

By Mark Pack | Fri 1st January 2010 - 11:09 am

Courtesy of the LibDems4Parliament website, here is the list of candidate selections closing this month:

  • Montgomeryshire – Prospective Welsh Assembly Candidate (02 Jan 2010)
  • High Peak – PPC (08 Jan 2010)
  • Battersea – PPC (18 Jan 2010)
  • Tooting – PPC (18 Jan 2010)
  • Ettrick, Roxburgh and Berwickshire – Prospective Scottish Parliamentary Candidate (22 Jan 2010)

For further details on how you could become the Liberal Democrat prospective candidate in any of these constituencies see http://libdems4parliament.org.uk/events. The site also have further information and contact details if you’re interested in finding out more about how to become a candidate more generally.

Posted in Selection news | 3 Comments
Mark Pack

Five tech tips for the new year: learn how to promote a site through leaflets

By Mark Pack | Fri 1st January 2010 - 10:20 am

Each day this week I’m giving a tip related to computers and campaigning. The exact details of how you follow each tip will vary depending on your own situation, so if you’re not quite sure what to do by all means pop up a question in the comments.

Today’s tip: stop thinking that just sticking a web address on a leaflet is a good way to promote the local Liberal Democratwebsite.

Yup, you read that right. Certainly, leafleting can be a crucial tool for generating more traffic to Liberal Democrat websites. But simply sticking a web address somewhere in the masthead is …

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Posted in Online politics | Tagged | 1 Comment
Mark Pack

Happy new year!

By Mark Pack | Fri 1st January 2010 - 9:00 am

Happy new year and best wishes to everyone fighting elections this year. Well, the Lib Dems amongst you at least 🙂

Spare a thought though for another group of people facing an election in 2010. Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe (Zanu-PF) is talking of calling an election during the year. At the last election up to 200 opposition MDC supporters were murdered by Zanu-PF supporters.  The bravery of those in the MDC who are willing to contest another election is an example to us all.

Posted in News | Tagged and | 1 Comment
Mark Pack

Five tech tips for the new year: get yourself listed

By Mark Pack | Thu 31st December 2009 - 10:20 am

Each day this week I’m giving a tip related to computers and campaigning. The exact details of how you follow each tip will vary depending on your own situation, so if you’re not quite sure what to do by all means pop up a question in the comments.

Today’s tip: make sure your local website is listed in the main places.

Does www.libdems.org.uk list your MP/PPC’s website and your local website? (If not, contact [email protected])

Are they also listed in DMOZ? (If not, click the ‘suggest URL link’ and read the instructions)

Are any local Lib Dem blogs listed in Wikio? …

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Posted in Online politics | Tagged | 3 Comments
Mark Pack

How accurate are Britain’s electoral registers?

By Mark Pack | Wed 30th December 2009 - 1:50 pm

The electoral register is the definitive record of who can or can’t vote in a particular election. Missing people means people aren’t able to exercise their democratic rights. Erroneous entries open up possibilities for fraud and for people who shouldn’t vote getting to cast a ballot. Statistics derived from the register are widely used to inform and shape other decisions. So having accurate registers is important.

Knowing how accurate our registers is a tough question to answer. Estimates as to the theoretical electorate if everyone entitled to vote registered – and no-one else – can be derived from population statistics. But those statistics are not perfect and the margins of error on the final calculations make it hard to judge whether our current rates of electoral registration fall at the good or bad end of the fairly narrow band that separates one from another. 98% registration rate would be good; 89% would be bad.

The Electoral Commission has therefore recently been carrying out some in depth research using a series of local case studies scattered across the country. An interim report on them has just been published. What does it say?

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

Five tech tips for the new year: use NutshellMail

By Mark Pack | Wed 30th December 2009 - 10:20 am

Each day this week I’m giving a tip related to computers and campaigning. The exact details of how you follow each tip will vary depending on your own situation, so if you’re not quite sure what to do by all means pop up a question in the comments.

Today’s tip: use NutshellMail.

I’ve eulogised about it before. I’ll eulogise about it again. But it’s simple: with NutsellMail you can easily keep on top of what’s happening on different social networks, all through one daily summary email. You can also respond then and there via links in the email.

It’s another free service …

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

Jacob Rees-Mogg under fire over fakery allegations

By Mark Pack | Tue 29th December 2009 - 2:45 pm

Liberal Conspiracy has the story from the Daily Mail about North East Somerset Conservatie, Jacob Rees-Mogg:

A Tory parliamentary candidate has been caught using a member of staff to pose as a constituent – in an election leaflet calling for honesty…

The woman would have had to make a 260-mile round trip from London to participate in the photo opportunity…

In March he was forced to apologise after plagiarising an editorial from a national newspaper for an election leaflet. And in May he was caught using staff to write an attack on Gordon Brown which he claimed to be his own words.

You can …

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Posted in News | Tagged | 1 Comment
Mark Pack

Televised party leader debates: get your worms at the ready

By Mark Pack | Tue 29th December 2009 - 11:50 am

The “worm” is an instant poll tracker which wriggles across people’s TV screens, showing the net negative or positive reaction of a small group of the public to what is happening on screen. Running a worm across a politician’s speech or a debate between politicians has become a not uncommon feature of political coverage across many democracies.

The worm has even occasionally surfaced in the UK – so will it surface again for our TV party leader debates at the general election? And will worms offer a chance for Channel 4 to repeat an Australian trick and put one over the other channels who have excluded it from the debates?

Known in the US as dial groups (because a group of people is each given a dial to twist towards positive or negative), worms have often been the cause of controversy there. Joe Klein in Politics Lost recounts how badly they got the 2000 Bush-Gore debates wrong:

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Mark Pack

Five tech tips for the new year: use a feed reader

By Mark Pack | Tue 29th December 2009 - 10:20 am

Each day this week I’m giving a tip related to computers and campaigning. The exact details of how you follow each tip will vary depending on your own situation, so if you’re not quite sure what to do by all means pop up a question in the comments.

Today’s tip: use a feed reader.

Feed readers (also known as RSS readers or news readers) are a massive time saver. Rather than having to slog round different websites to see if they’ve got any new stories or blog posts on them, you subscribe to them via the feed reader. The feed reader then …

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Posted in Online politics | Tagged | 3 Comments
Mark Pack

Five tech tips for the new year: back up your data

By Mark Pack | Mon 28th December 2009 - 10:50 am

The gap between Christmas and the New Year is often a great period to catch up on some of those things you always meant to get round to doing and which will save time and avoid heartache if you do. So each day this week I’ll be giving a tip related to computers and campaigning. The exact details of how you follow each tip will vary depending on your own situation, so if you’re not quite sure what to do by all means pop up a question in the comments.

Today’s tip: back up your data.

I used to share an office …

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Posted in Online politics | Tagged | 3 Comments
Mark Pack

Daily View 2×2: 27 December 2009

By Mark Pack | Sun 27th December 2009 - 7:00 am

It’s Sunday. It’s 7am. It’s time for the Chicken Song, but first the news.

2 Must-Read Blog Posts

What are other Liberal Democrat bloggers saying? Here’s 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

Renewed clashes reported in Iran

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Mark Pack

Lib Dems will fight for fair bank charges in Parliament – Clegg

By Mark Pack | Wed 23rd December 2009 - 7:51 am

From a party news release:

Commenting on the OFT’s decision to drop its investigation into the fairness of bank overdraft charges, Liberal Democrat Leader Nick Clegg said:

“This is extremely disappointing and a blow for millions of bank customers.

“Having come so close to overhauling an unfair system of charging that penalises vulnerable groups of people, I know that the campaign will not just stop.

“The Liberal Democrats will continue the fight for fair bank charges in Parliament and push for a change in the law if necessary so that high street banks cannot keep ripping off their customers.”

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

Is Danny Finkelstein right about televised party leader debates?

By Mark Pack | Wed 23rd December 2009 - 12:51 am

Over at The Times, Danny Finkelstein has cast doubt on the possible impact of the televised party leader debates at our next general election:

By the time of the campaign proper they are probably too late. We should be having these debates now if we want them to be influential.

In his piece, Danny draws on the evidence from the US (only – not from other Parliamentary democracies with TV debates, tsk tsk). However, there is some very relevant evidence from the UK. It’s from the polling carried out by The Times’s own pollster, Populus, at the time of the …

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

TV debate between party leaders: it’s only taken 46 years

By Mark Pack | Mon 21st December 2009 - 7:41 pm

The first proposals for a TV debate between party leaders were made for the 1964 general election. For all the talk of the power of the media, it will have taken 46 years for them to get their wish. It’s a credit to Sky that after so many years they finally were the broadcaster willing to call the bluff of party leaders and be willing to empty chair any who didn’t turn up – hence forcing the current agreement. The media certainly do have wider responsibilities than their own immediate self-interest, but it’s quite remarkable that for 46 years they’ve …

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Posted in News | Tagged , , and | 22 Comments
Mark Pack

The Orwell Prize for Blogs 2010: open for entries

By Mark Pack | Mon 21st December 2009 - 3:45 pm

A  message from the organisers:

The Orwell Prize, Britain’s most prestigious prize for political writing, is inviting entries for a Blog Prize for a second year.

If you’d like to enter, you need to submit 10 URLs you’ve written in 2009. They do not have to be from the same blog, but they should all be written by you – the prize is self-nominating.

The entry form can be found at http://www.theorwellprize.co.uk/blogprize2010.aspx, with full rules and regulations at http://www.theorwellprize.co.uk/the-award/how-to-enter.aspx. The entry deadline is 20th January 2010.

The winner of the prize receives £3,000 and an Orwell Prize plaque. Richard Horton (Jack Night)

…

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

Probably the best election address, ever

By Mark Pack | Mon 21st December 2009 - 1:10 pm

In the last year, I’ve brought you the best headline in a Labour leaflet, ever and one of the very best Conservative leaflets, ever. Now as a special pre-Christmas treat, it’s time for probably the best election address, ever. I’ve only got the first four lines though, as you’ll see, that is probably enough.

Step forward Dennis Skinner and his 1979 effort, written entirely in verse:

The election is here again, nine years since my first try,
How strange that the issues haven’t changed by and by,
The Tory leader then was Ted Heath, who promised you less tax
Lower prices, and civil

…

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Posted in Humour | Tagged | 2 Comments
Mark Pack

Social networking tip: the benefits of NutshellMail

By Mark Pack | Sun 20th December 2009 - 5:20 pm

Back in March I blogged about the benefits of using NutshellMail to keep on top of social networks. The free service has just been updated, with some very useful extra features added.

But first, why use it?

What I wrote in March still applies:

One of the most common reasons I hear people give for not joining a social network site such as Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn is, “I know it’s useful, but where would I find the time to keep up with what’s happening?”

A typical way of tackling, at least in party, this dilemma is to go through carefully tweaking your

…

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Posted in Online politics | Tagged , , and | 2 Comments
Mark Pack

Daily View 2×2: 20 December 2009

By Mark Pack | Sun 20th December 2009 - 7:00 am

It’s Sunday. It’s 7am. It’s time for a singing Christmas dog, but first the news.

2 Must-Read Blog Posts

What are other Liberal Democrat bloggers saying? Here’s 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

Copenhagen climate deal meets qualified UN welcome

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Mark Pack

What is going on in Southend?

By Mark Pack | Sat 19th December 2009 - 2:34 pm

Allegations of intimidation, harassment, vandalism and more in a fall out between Conservative councillor Jason Luty and the Residents Association of Westborough (RAW).

The local CouncilBust blog reports:

Dr Jason Luty, Conservative councillor for Eastwood Park, has claimed that RAW is a politically- motivated organisation that has embarked on a campaign to victimise him.

Cllr Luty has also asserted that Martin Terry, independent councillor for Westborough, controls RAW and is behind the campaign.

At the same time, members of RAW and Cllr Terry have claimed that Cllr Luty has been deliberately attacking RAW by harassing its members, threatening their properties and using vandalism…

Cllr Terry

…

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

Party’s policy committee agrees to axe tuition fees

By Mark Pack | Fri 18th December 2009 - 2:33 pm

From an email from Nick Clegg:

This week the Party’s federal policy committee agreed a way to deliver one of our most important policies, the scrapping of unfair tuition fees. We’ve developed a plan to phase out tuition fees over the course of the next six years, to ensure this vital policy is affordable even at this time of economic crisis.

Labour and the Conservatives refuse to address the issue of fees and there is a real danger that both of them would lift the cap on fees which could mean even more debt for students when they leave university. We think

…

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Posted in News and Party policy and internal matters | Tagged , , , and | 23 Comments
Mark Pack

Massive $6bn lawsuit for repeated breaches of music copyright

By Mark Pack | Fri 18th December 2009 - 1:10 pm

Defendants in Canada are facing an eye-watering $6 billion payout in a court case over repeated breaches of music copyright over several years. Claims for unpaid royalties total $50 million, but on top of that the defendants face having to pay $20,000 for each copyrighted song which has been used without payment. Records show that the total number of such songs is more than 300,000.

Although the songs involved have easily identified copyright owners who would happily accept payment and who are paid by other law abiding users of their music, no such payments have been made in the case of …

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Posted in News | Tagged and | 1 Comment
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