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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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Daily View 2×2: 22 November 2009

By Mark Pack | Sun 22nd November 2009 - 7:00 am

It’s Sunday. It’s 7am and we’ve got some coffee art to wake you up this morning. But first, the blogs and then 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:

Mathematical error leads to blunder by Local Government Boundary Commission for Wales reports Ali Goldsworthy on Freedom Central
Christians engage with politics – quite rightly as Lynne Featherstone reports on a visit to a local church group

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

Sri Lanka vows to free 130,000 Tamil refugees

Continue reading »

Posted in Daily View | Tagged ali goldsworthy, equalities, lynne featherstone and sri lanka | 3 Comments

Live TV coverage of Parliament started 20 years ago today

By Mark Pack | Sat 21st November 2009 - 10:20 am

Somewhat unexpectedly, one of the most immediate changes brought about by televising the House of Commons was to male MPs’ hairstyles.

Until then, it had been the habit amongst some of the, er…, thinning on top MPs to brush their hair forward so that when you looked at them face to face it appeared that they had a bountiful mop of hair above their forehead. Unfortunately, if you looked down on their head from a slightly elevated position, this impressive wave of hair instead looked like a toupe that had slipped forward leaving a bald patch further back.

And where were the …

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Posted in Parliament | Tagged bryan gould | 2 Comments

Electoral fact of the day: turnout and postal voting

By Mark Pack | Sat 21st November 2009 - 9:20 am

In June’s European elections, turnout amongst postal voters was 64% in Great Britain. Turnout amongst non-postal voters was 30% – a full 34 percentage points lower. There’s a lesson in there about campaigning…

The figures for the different regions were:

South East 68% (+34%)
South West 68% (+33%)
East Midlands 67% (+34%)
Eastern 67% (+33%)
West Midlands 66% (+35%)
Scotland 63% (+39%)
Yorkshire & The Humber 63% (+37%)
North West 63% (+37%)
Wales 62% (+36%)
London 61% (+31%)
North East 59% (+38%)

The Isles of Scilly were the only area where turnout amongst postal voters was lower than that amongst non-postal voters (by two percentage points).

Source: Calculated from Electoral Commission data

Posted in News | Tagged electoral commission, european elections and postal voting | Leave a comment

How to build-up the size of your blog’s readership

By Mark Pack | Sat 21st November 2009 - 8:50 am

Welcome to part seven of our “Introduction to blogging” guide for Liberal Democrat bloggers or would-be bloggers. It’s appearing each Saturday between now and Christmas, with all the posts available via this page. The series will then be revised and collated into an e-book, so please do post up your comments as the series progresses. Today it’s the turn of The Voice’s Mark Pack to talk about building up your audience.

There are many reasons for blogging and, depending on your own …

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Posted in Blogging guide | Tagged blogging and featured | 1 Comment

Welcome to the new bloggers…

By Mark Pack | Fri 20th November 2009 - 2:10 pm

Ten blogs have recently joined Ryan’s Liberal Democrat Blogs aggregator:

Bryan Wallbridge – http://british-liberal.blogspot.com
Chris Bowers – http://chrisbowersforwealden.blogspot.com
Jane Leaper – http://mynewldblog.blogspot.com
King’s Hedges – http://kingshedgesfocus.blogspot.com
Lisa Northover – http://boscombewest.blogspot.com
Nick Radford – http://nickradford.blogspot.com
Prue Bray – http://pruebray.mycouncillor.org.uk
Qurban Hussain – http://qurbanhussain.blogspot.com
Robin Meltzer – http://robinmeltzer.blogspot.com
Liberal Democrat Climate Change Network

All but one are using Blogger, the exception being Prue with the ALDC MyCouncillor system. If you’re thinking of starting up a blog yourself, both have much to recommend them but there are a range of other strong contenders too as Mat

…

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Posted in Online politics | Tagged blogging | 3 Comments

Are local council boundaries set to change?

By Mark Pack | Fri 20th November 2009 - 11:10 am

That’s what the Electoral Commission is suggesting in its ‘farewell’ press release to mark the handing over of responsibilities for local government boundaries to a new body:

Max Caller, Chair of the Boundary Committee and Electoral Commissioner, said: “The new Local Government Boundary Commission for England’s job will be to keep the map of local government in England in good repair. Having fair local electoral arrangements is important to ensure that every voter, wherever they live in a council area, has a vote of similar weight in electing their representatives.

“We estimate that, by 2014, a quarter of all English local

…

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Posted in Local government and News | Tagged electoral commission, local government boundary commission and max caller | 6 Comments

Will the Conservatives deal with racism in the Orpington PPC selection?

By Mark Pack | Fri 20th November 2009 - 9:15 am

Leaked emails published by Duncan Borrowman reveal a dismal state of affairs in the Orpington Conservative party, with Councillor Peter Hobbins writing comments such as, “Why are the Candidates Department so keen on these foreign names?!!!” and criticising members of the Conservative Party’s list of approved candidates for not having “a ‘normal’ English name”.

Duncan’s post says,

Racism is alive and kicking in Orpington Conservatives, as revealed in a couple of emails sent on the Bromley Council email system to their local councillors and constituency chairman in the early hours of this morning, and leaked to me today.

You can read the full …

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Posted in News | Tagged duncan borrowman, orpington and peter hobbins | 4 Comments

Meral Ece appointed to Equality and Human Rights Commission

By Mark Pack | Thu 19th November 2009 - 10:19 pm

Congratulations to Cllr Meral Ece (Islington) on her appointment as a commissioner of the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC). Operation Black Vote reports:

A race advisor to Lib Dem leader Nick Clegg, Ece has her hands full having been handed special responsibility for race, gender and religion on the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC).

Speaking to OBV Blog, Ece said: “I’m really happy to be appointed. It’s a great opportunity and challenge. It’s important to put party politics aside and work to have a strong, healthy organisation.

“We need a strong regulatory body, to work towards a society that is

…

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Posted in News | Tagged equalities, equality and human rights commission and meral ece | 2 Comments

Lib Dem Voice publishes exclusive general election prediction

By Mark Pack | Thu 19th November 2009 - 2:50 pm

Election forecasting, that is the using data such as party standings, leader ratings and economic indicators to predict the result of the next general election, is still in its infancy. The combination of general elections only every four years or so with the relatively recent innovation of regular detailed polling figures means that there has often been a shortage of data and election results with which to create and test models.

However, as each general election passes the volume of data accumulates and predictive models get more sophisticated. Of course, this begs the question about how well you can predict an …

Continue reading »

Posted in General Election and News | 57 Comments

New figures reveal which candidates do the most campaigning

By Mark Pack | Thu 19th November 2009 - 11:50 am

Figures revealing which party’s candidates were most likely to do leafleting, canvassing, internet campaigning and a set of other activities have just been published by the Electoral Commission.

The Commission carried out a survey of local election candidates from the June 2009 campaign and found:

Conservative candidates were most likely to have produced a campaign leaflet (98% versus 70% for Lib Dems and 60% for Labour)
Labour and Conservative candidates were equally likely to have had telephone canvassing in their campaign (27% each, with 21% for the Lib Dems)
On average, Conservative candidates spent 21 hours a week campaigning during the campaign (excluding

…

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Posted in News | Tagged electoral commission and local elections | 16 Comments

The National Lottery: what do you think of it?

By Mark Pack | Thu 19th November 2009 - 9:20 am

The National Lottery is celebrating its 15th birthday today.

There were many controversies in the run up to its launch. Would it encourage gambling and result in more problems of gambling addiction? Would it be a welcome source of funds for good causes or would it provide an excuse for government to cut its funding? Would the profits for the operators dwarf the money given to good causes? Would it be a welcome new source of revenue for local shops? And so on.

So, fifteen years on: what do you think?

Posted in News | Tagged national lottery | 14 Comments

Alex Ferguson forced to unban BBC

By Mark Pack | Wed 18th November 2009 - 1:10 pm

A follow-up to my post When is it ok to ban a journalist?, about the habit in football of clubs banning journalists who say things they don’t like (can you imagine the uproar if a public sector body tried to do the same?):

Sir Alex Ferguson will have to end his six-year ban on giving interviews to BBC reporters under newly agreed rules coming into force next season.

A motion was passed at a Premier League board meeting last week which made post-match interviews with all media rights holders mandatory for league managers, reports The Daily Telegraph.

Manchester United supremo Ferguson has not

…

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Posted in News | Tagged alex ferguson, bbc, football, journalism and manchester united | 3 Comments

Is Colin Byrne right about internet campaigning?

By Mark Pack | Wed 18th November 2009 - 11:50 am

Colin Byrne, CEO of Weber Shandwick and former Labour Party press chief, recently knocked the possible importance of internet campaigning for British elections and suggested Hazel Blears was right with her YouTube jibe.

He wrote in Saturday’s Guardian:

We surveyed 1,000 potential voters at the time of the recent party conferences. They were asked what communications channels would have an influence on deciding how to vote. When a parallel sample of consumers were asked the same question about purchasing decisions, by far the biggest influence was digital and social media (26%). Print and broadcast media ranked second in influence, with only

…

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Posted in Online politics | Tagged colin byrne | 2 Comments

Ex-Tory councillor on trial for vote-rigging in election fraud hotspot

By Mark Pack | Tue 17th November 2009 - 10:20 pm

The Halifax Courier reports:

A FORMER Calderdale councillor is set to stand trial for alleged vote rigging.

Mohammed Saghir, 63, of Gibbet Street, Halifax, has denied five charges of rigging proxy votes.

He is alleged to have applied for proxy votes under different names during the local elections in April 2008.

Saghir was elected as a Conservative councillor for St John’s, now Park ward, in 2000.

This is rather a hotspot for election fraud, proved or alleged, for this is what Mohammed Saghir’s opponents were up to in the same election:

TWO cousins of ex-councillor Mohammed Najib voted for him under false names, a court

…

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Posted in Election law and News | Tagged calderdale council, mohammed najib and mohammed saghir | 2 Comments

Northern Ireland residents back ending donations secrecy

By Mark Pack | Tue 17th November 2009 - 9:59 pm

From the BBC:

“Most people” are in favour of ending the confidentiality surrounding donations to political parties in NI, focus group research has suggested.

It was conducted by the Electoral Commission, which recorded the views of eight groups around NI, each consisting of between six and eight people.

Unlike the rest of the UK, details of political donors are still kept secret in NI, because of security concerns…

This confidentiality clause is due to expire on 31 October 2010.

The Northern Ireland Office is expected to consult the public on whether the clause should end or be extended further before the end of this

…

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Posted in Election law and News | Tagged donations, electoral commission and northern ireland | 1 Comment

Weekend voting: will this be the next trend in trying to raise turnout at elections?

By Mark Pack | Tue 17th November 2009 - 2:10 pm

Cross-posted from The Wardman Wire:

Over the last few years a wide range of attempts have been made to raise turnout at elections in the UK. The broad conclusion is very simple: all-postal ballots raise turnout significantly (albeit at the cost of various drawbacks) and nothing else that has been tried does so. E-voting, early voting, voting by text, and many others: all been tried, all flopped.

However, there are signs that moving to voting at the weekend may be coming back on the electoral administration agenda.

It is easy to see why weekend voting may appeal. Fewer people work at the weekend which could mean people are more likely to have time to go and vote, plus in turn candidates are more likely to be able to get volunteers out campaigning on polling day reminding people to vote.

The main drawbacks are also fairly straight-forward.

Continue reading »

Posted in Election law and News | Tagged electoral commission, european elections, turnout and weekend voting | 13 Comments

How The Times has left me worried I’m hallucinating

By Mark Pack | Mon 16th November 2009 - 8:37 pm

Here’s the email I’ve just sent to The Times. Let’s hope it doesn’t turn out I’m hallucinating and saw 175 mentions of Christmas where in fact there were none.

I’m really confused.

In your story “Christmas lights switch-on ceremony renamed ‘Winter White Night” (http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/scotland/article6915007.ece) you report that, “Christmas will not be Christmas in Dundee this year. All references to the religious holiday have been dropped from the switching-on ceremony for the city’s festive lights.”

Yet when I go to look up information about the ceremony online, I find the program at http://www.dundee.com/winter-light-night.html where “Christmas” is mentioned no less than six times.

…

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Posted in News | Tagged christmas, dundee council and the times | 6 Comments

Two converts to Twitter’s political benefits

By Mark Pack | Sun 15th November 2009 - 5:50 pm

Yesterday was London Region’s autumn conference, during which I heard from two recent converts to Twitter.

First, Keith House – leader of Eastleigh Council and probably the person with the best record of election results at both local and national level year in, year out in any council run by the Liberal Democrats.* Perhaps understandably given his record of electoral success, he hasn’t been chomping at the bit to innovate online – but even Keith has now seen the benefits Twitter can bring and joined himself.

Keith highlighted how much greater the role of the internet would be at the next …

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Posted in Online politics | Tagged bridget fox, chris nicholson, jonathan fryer, keith house, nick clegg and twitter | 1 Comment

Sopel on Sunday: the best bits from the political shows

By Mark Pack | Sun 15th November 2009 - 3:46 pm

Jon Sopel’s selection of the best clips is now up on the BBC website, including an interview with one of the members of the so-called Turnip Taleban.

Posted in News | Tagged jon sopel | 1 Comment

“Electoral watchdog under fire as Lord Ashcroft inquiry threatens to run into election”

By Mark Pack | Sun 15th November 2009 - 11:31 am

From today’s Observer:

Controversy over Lord Ashcroft’s donations to the Conservative party deepened last night after Labour MPs demanded an urgent meeting with Britain’s elections watchdog.

Placing more pressure on the Tories, Labour MPs want to know why the Electoral Commission’s official inquiry into an Ashcroft-controlled company, which has given £3m to the party, has dragged on for 10 months and threatens to run into the general election campaign.

You can read the full story here.

Posted in Election law and News | Tagged conservative party, electoral commission and lord ashcroft | Leave a comment

Daily View 2×2: 15 November 2009

By Mark Pack | Sun 15th November 2009 - 7:00 am

It’s Sunday. It’s 7am. And by popular demand, it’s time for another peanut butter gem from YouTube. But first, the news.

2 Big Stories

MoD probes new Iraq abuse claims

The Ministry of Defence has said it is investigating new allegations of abuse by the UK military in Iraq.

Lawyers acting for former Iraqi detainees are calling for a full public inquiry into 33 abuse claims made during UK military involvement there.

One allegation is that two soldiers raped a 16-year-old boy in 2003.

Armed forces minister Bill Rammell said such claims were taken seriously but formal inquiries must be held “without judgements being made prematurely”. (BBC)

Continue reading »

Posted in Daily View | Tagged bill rammell, iraq and jacques diouf | 2 Comments

Labour council leader admits stealing £1,300

By Mark Pack | Sat 14th November 2009 - 1:50 pm

Bill Thomas, Labour leader of Sandwell Council until his arrest in October, has admitted stealing £1,300 from Nat West bank in a cheque fraud:

The court heard how a close friend, Gareth Hall, had cashed three of Thomas’s cheques totalling £1,300 – which was then reimbursed by the bank after Thomas claimed he did not know Hall.

As a result,

Bill Thomas has been ordered to repay £1,300 and given a 12-month conditional discharge after pleading guilty to theft. (Local Government Chronicle)

Posted in News | Tagged bill thomas and sandwell council | 2 Comments

Improving election counts: good moves from the Electoral Commission

By Mark Pack | Sat 14th November 2009 - 9:20 am

Earlier this week I went to meet with the Electoral Commission to discuss their plans for encouraging better practice at election counts. Having spotted my views, they invited me thinking I might be interested in their plans – and kudos to the Electoral Commission for willing to talk in this way.

The plans are still in draft and subject to consultation, so I won’t go in to details about them now, but the overall move is towards having a recommended set of count procedures and accompanying forms which are (a) a big improvement on the current situation, (b) produce more …

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Posted in Election law and News | Tagged electoral commission | 2 Comments

How do the messages on the main political party websites compare?

By Mark Pack | Fri 13th November 2009 - 10:20 am

Comparing the popularity of different words in the latest stories from the the Liberal Democrat, Conservative and Labour Party websites reveals striking differences in the messages being put out by each party online.

Reproduced below are three word clouds, where the bigger a word is the more often it appeared on that party’s latest website stories. The word clouds were generated yesterday (Thursday) based on the then state of each of the three websites.

First, let’s look at the Conservative Party:

Continue reading »

Posted in Online politics | Tagged conservative party, featured and labour party | 13 Comments

Four Bradford Conservative supporters go on trial for postal vote fraud

By Mark Pack | Thu 12th November 2009 - 7:43 pm

The Bradford Telegraph & Argus reports:

Four Conservative party supporters from Bradford tried to rig the voting system in the run-up to a General Election in a plot to “harvest” postal votes, a court heard today.

Mohammed Sultan, Mohammed Rafiq, Reis Khan and Jamshed Khan sent off for postal voting applications under false names or had legitimate applications re-directed to them, Leeds Crown Court heard.

Their aim was to get “their man” Haroon Rashid, 39, elected to the Bradford West seat in the 2005 General Election, said prosecutor Mark Ainsworth.

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Posted in News | Tagged postal voting | 3 Comments

Conservative PPC kicked off council for non-attendance

By Mark Pack | Thu 12th November 2009 - 12:50 pm

The Conservative Parliamentary candidate for Sheffield Hallam, Daniel Gage, would face a pretty uphill task to defeat Nick Clegg in any event. But he’s just made that job a whole lot harder, by being kicked off a town council for failing to turn up to meetings.

The Sheffield Telegraph reports:

Daniel Gage, one of five Tories on Dronfield Town Council, has been disqualified after failing to attend a single council meeting in the last six months.

Mr Gage, aged 24, said he is ‘heartbroken’ to have been kicked off the council just days before he was due to launch his campaign to

…

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Posted in News | Tagged daniel gage, nick clegg and sheffield hallam | 2 Comments

Move over James Purnell, there’s a new photoshopping king in town

By Mark Pack | Thu 12th November 2009 - 8:50 am

First, a recap from 2007 for new readers:

You may recall the story of James Purnell and the photoshopping incident – an NHS Trust faked a photo featuring him, the Trust and he then gave differing accounts of how it happened, he then bombed out in a rather funny TV piece trying to defend his line that he didn’t know what was going to happen and wasn’t in any way to blame for the fakery and then Pink Dog got dragged into the whole saga.

Yesterday the Telegraph and today the Mail have unearthed more evidence, and it’s looking pretty bleak for

…

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Posted in News | Tagged james purnell | Leave a comment

Daniel Hannan back talking about the NHS

By Mark Pack | Wed 11th November 2009 - 8:11 pm

Liberal Conspiracy has the story:

Dan Hannan slams NHS in new video for Ron Paul…

The video starts off with talking about the establishment of the NHS with images from the Second World War and that of Hitler.

Anthony says:

Did you enjoy the frames of Hitler when he was talking about the establishment of the NHS? Very stylish and clever. Remember, healthcare reform in the US is Nazi- lots of people say so like these people and these. Nicely done, Campaign for Liberty.

Hannan calls the NHS a remnant of a system from “war time planning”.

You can watch the film and read the …

Continue reading »

Posted in News | Tagged daniel hannan and NHS | 4 Comments

Haringey ‘gagged’ council chief with six-figure payoff

By Mark Pack | Wed 11th November 2009 - 7:52 pm

The Evening Standard reports:

Haringey council was facing fresh criticism today over a secret six-figure payoff it made to one of its senior officials.

The woman, who cannot be named for legal reasons, was allegedly given the payment to stop an embarrassing “revelation” about Labour councillor Charles Adje becoming public at an employment tribunal.

The council is facing calls to explain the deal.

Liberal Democrat MP for Hornsey and Wood Green, Lynne Featherstone, called on chief executive Ita O’Donovan to “clarify” the reasons for it.

She said: “There is a big question mark over how Haringey uses gagging orders and prefers cover-up to openness. There

…

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Posted in News | Tagged charles adje, haringey council, ita o'donovan and lynne featherstone | 2 Comments

When is it ok to ban a journalist?

By Mark Pack | Tue 10th November 2009 - 1:50 pm

Portsmouth FC have banned a local newspaper journalist from their ground after taking dislike to a piece that he wrote. Although the club has neither suggested the article broke any law nor is libellous, it has decided to ban Neil Allen for an “indefinite period” from home matches, press conferences, speaking to the players and coaching staff or visiting the club’s training ground.

As Hold The Front Page reports,

News sports editor Howard Frost told HTFP: “It seems a bit petty. If (manager) Paul Hart wants to take exception, that’s his prerogative.

“It’s generally normal for managers and journalists to fall out

…

Continue reading »

Posted in Op-eds | Tagged football, journalism, neil allen, paul hart and portsmouth fc | 2 Comments

Most Read

Op-eds

Separation of Powers and Civil Liberties in the UK are now at breaking point (Tara Foster)
Welcome to my day: 15 June 2026 – some boldness on Europe… at last… (Mark Valladares)
Actually, this Summer of Strategy could be quite good… (Caron Lindsay)
Accountability and international law (Anne-Marie Simpson)
Good luck Scotland and England (Caron Lindsay)

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