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

Party Political Broadcasts: Ofcom proposes some tweaks to the rules

By Mark Pack | Sun 20th September 2009 - 7:20 pm

You have until 25 November to give Ofcom your views of their proposed amendments to the rules governing Party Political Broadcasts. Ofcom’s rules apply to the commercial outlets that run PPBs – Channels 3, 4 and Five, Classic FM, talkSPORT and Absolute AM. (The BBC and S4C have their own rules.)

Aside from some tidying up and clearer processes, the changes proposed look sensible and are:

  • to provide that the number of PEBs allocated to major parties and other registered parties should be determined having regard

…

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Mark Pack

A better politics for less: where Nick Clegg’s axe would fall

By Mark Pack | Sun 20th September 2009 - 11:38 am

Nick Clegg has today launched a detailed plan for cutting the costs of government, “A Better Politics for Less”:

Balancing the government books isn’t just the political equivalent of an accountancy exam; Liberal Democrats seek austerity for the purpose of delivering a better Britain. The best way to reduce government expenditure is through significant reform, identifying big ticket items that can be done differently or not done at all. Simply squeezing budgets year-on-year, without identifying how to deliver better for less will just hurt the public services people rely on.

Unlike the previous Conservative proposals, these plans will both save a significant …

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Posted in News | Tagged and | 14 Comments
Mark Pack

Backlash over Conservative Bedford Mayor selection

By Mark Pack | Sun 20th September 2009 - 11:12 am

From Bedfordshire on Sunday:

Snubbed tory leader Nicky Attenborough has launched a scathing attack on her party claiming Monday’s open primary to elect a mayoral candidate was ‘hijacked’…

In Mrs Attenborough’s email, copied in to Tory chief David Cameron and leaked to Bedfordshire on Sunday, she says: ‘Exactly why should anyone become a member of the Conservative Party when they can walk off the streets into any selection meeting and choose the most unsuitable candidate, if they want, without knowing anything about them, or go to a meeting with the leader without having to pay £20 for the privilege…

‘What followed was

…

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

Daily View 2×2: 20 September 2009

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

It’s Sunday. It’s 7am. It’s time for the Daily View, today with a special Trojan Horse supplement.

2 Big Stories

Obama attempts to revive Middle East peace efforts

So reports the BBC:

Mr Obama will first hold separate talks with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, the White House says.

The three men, who will be in New York for the UN General Assembly, will then hold joint discussions.

The move comes after US envoy George Mitchell’s latest round of shuttle diplomacy ended without agreement.

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Mark Pack

Real Women policy paper debate: live blog #ldconf

By Mark Pack | Sat 19th September 2009 - 2:51 pm

With my technological fingers crossed, here we go…

The votes:

  1. Amendment 1 (female representation): passed overwhelmingly
  2. Amendment 2 (air-brushing): overwhelmingly defeated
  3. Amendment 3 (sport): passed overwhelmingly
  4. Separate vote (on name blank employment): lines overwhelmingly retained
  5. Motion as a whole: passed overwhelmingly

Lynne Featherstone (summating on the motion): concentrates on name-blank employment and on air-brushing. Draws parallel with exam marking where names are removed in order to stop some forms of bias and highlights evidence from Department of Work and Pensions of the impact that name-blanking can have. On air-brushing – it’s about tackling conformity and not accepting the values of global industries. It’s about making the operation …

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Posted in Conference | Tagged , and | 36 Comments
Mark Pack

Nick Clegg’s blogger interviews

By Mark Pack | Sat 19th September 2009 - 11:33 am

This morning a group of 10 bloggers interviewed Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg. The questions ranged over a wide area and here are a few selected highlights:

MPs’ expenses: Nick eloquently made the link between safe seats and good behaviour by MPs: “if you want to keep MPs honest, don’t give them safe seats for life … safe seats corrupt public life”. He said his one real regret over how he had handled the issue was not making the point more forcefully that whilst the party was not free of “blemishes”, no Liberal Democrat MP had been involved in the serious …

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Posted in Blogger Interviews | Tagged , , and | 5 Comments
Mark Pack

Please be nice and helpful…

By Mark Pack | Sat 19th September 2009 - 11:20 am

… and complete this online survey.

As the blurb says:

This survey is designed to explore the views and activities of the users of four UK Party-related websites – LabourHome, Labour List, ConservativeHome and Lib Dem Voice. The overall goal of the project is to better understand how and why party members, supporters and voters in general are using the web and blogs to engage with politics and political organisations.

The first section asks about your background and some general questions about your political activities and interests. The second section explores your views of the site and how you engage with it.

…

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Posted in Online politics | 3 Comments
Mark Pack

Conference: what to watch out for on Saturday

By Mark Pack | Sat 19th September 2009 - 8:55 am

Running rather against the modern trend of reorganising events to suit the media, this autumn’s Liberal Democrat conference is starting and finishing a day earlier. With a Saturday start and a Wednesday finish, that means one weekday (better for media coverage) has been sacrificed for one extra weekend day (worse for media coverage, but more convenient for party members to attend).

What to expect on this Saturday of conference then?

Highlights are likely to include:

  • The Real Women policy paper debate in the afternoon, which includes proposals related to the airbrushing of women in magazine photos and the like. That particular aspect of

…

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

Cabinet Office: correspondence chaos

By Mark Pack | Fri 18th September 2009 - 11:20 am

It’s all a bit rum. Back in December I put in a complaint via the Cabinet Office website about Gordon Brown. It was a pretty minor issue – using government letterhead for partisan purposes – but given how stringent the rules imposed on other bodies around the country, it seemed to me worth all of oooh 30 seconds to make the point of principle.

But I got no reply. And I don’t like that sort of thing…

So I sent another message via their website. And got no reply.

So I wrote a letter. And got no reply.

So I wrote to my MP, who then wrote to the …

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Posted in News | Tagged and | 16 Comments
Mark Pack

The Which? survival guide to conference

By Mark Pack | Thu 17th September 2009 - 9:31 pm

An email pings in to The Voice’s inbox to say:

Which? is producing supplements for this year’s party conferences, providing people with a one-stop guide to surviving Bournemouth, Brighton and Manchester…

In the build up to the next General Election, it’s important that the consumer voice is heard as each party develops its policies. All 45 million voters are also consumers, so each supplement includes the issues Which? wants to see on the political agenda – from better protection for savings to simpler energy bills and access to good quality dental care.

Michelle Smyth, public affairs manager at Which? says:

“With a general election

…

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Posted in Conference | Tagged | 1 Comment
Mark Pack

What do the academics say? Persuading someone to vote comes with a free bonus

By Mark Pack | Wed 16th September 2009 - 6:25 pm

Welcome to another in my occasional series on useful, interesting or controversial findings from academic studies of our politics and elections.

Today it’s turnout and the question, “Is voting habit forming?” In other words, if you persuade someone to go out and vote in one election, do you get a bonus benefit in that they are also then more likely to vote in future elections?

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Mark Pack

The Voice’s conference coverage

By Mark Pack | Tue 15th September 2009 - 5:25 pm

We’re just putting the finishing touches to our plans for covering the Bournemouth federal conference (Security pass? Check. Emergency chocolate rations? Check. Peruvian dancing band booked for fringe? Check.)

Now that we’ve been around through several conferences, there is always the risk of doing things just because that’s what we’ve always done. So any last minute suggestions for what we should do in addition to or differently from our previous conference coverage?

Posted in Conference | 9 Comments
Mark Pack

Election hustings meetings: Electoral Commission relaxes rules

By Mark Pack | Tue 15th September 2009 - 2:20 pm

A wider range of meetings at which people get to question Parliamentary candidates should be exempt from election expense limits according to new guidance from the Electoral Commission.

The Electoral Commission’s previous guidance was that costs related to hustings meetings did not need to feature in any of the individual candidate election expense returns if all the candidates for a constituency were invited. This was a welcome simplification of the previous position where many meeting organisers (partly for good reasons and partly for more debatable ones) believed that in practice they could only organise a hustings meeting if everyone agreed to …

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Mark Pack

Peter Mandelson toys with electoral reform

By Mark Pack | Mon 14th September 2009 - 10:14 pm

Following his speech to the Progress conference earlier today, Peter Mandelson answered a question about electoral reform. After defending the existing system, he went on to say:

Now, does that mean to say that there is no change that could be made in our voting system in our country so that people really feel that it’s fairer and more representative? No,I don’t think we should reject contemplating any sort of change and I think that’s something that we’re going to have to address in the coming months.

Hat-tip: Left Foot Forward

Posted in Election law and News | Tagged and | 6 Comments
Mark Pack

Should product placement be banned from TV shows?

By Mark Pack | Sun 13th September 2009 - 3:36 pm

Here’s Don Foster’s take on the subject:

In the current financial climate, we have to look at all revenue options including product placement.

The previous Secretary of State, Andy Burnham, was wrong to have ruled out the option of product placement.

With Google now having a larger advertising revenue than ITV, the commercial television companies need to fight back and it’s welcome that the new Secretary of State is using common sense and allowing product placement to be part of their armoury.

Given how controversial product placement was in its early days in US TV and in films, I’m struck how muted the public …

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Posted in News | Tagged and | 15 Comments
Mark Pack

The MP conference fringe league table

By Mark Pack | Sun 13th September 2009 - 10:20 am

Using the official information on which MP is attending which fringe meeting, this is how the league table looks:

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Posted in Conference | 2 Comments
Mark Pack

What do the academics say? Ballot paper ordering

By Mark Pack | Sat 12th September 2009 - 4:55 pm

Welcome to a new occasional series covering what academics have to say about politics, elections and public opinion. As with most things in life, academic research comes in various flavours, including the good, the bad and the stating the bleeding obvious (though investigating ‘what everyone knows’ does have a role, as just sometimes it isn’t true after all).

Today’s selection is about the order in which names appear on ballot papers can affect election results.

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Posted in Election law and What do the academics say? | Tagged and | 7 Comments
Mark Pack

Willie Rennie is new Campaigns Chair

By Mark Pack | Sat 12th September 2009 - 9:20 am

Willie Rennie has been elected (unopposed) as the new chair of the Liberal Democrats’ Campaigns and Communications Committee (CCC). His predecessor, Ed Davey, announced he was standing down earlier this year.

Willie brings a strong campaigning pedigree to the role, being not only a Parliamentary by-election victor himself (and anyone who can remember the political circumstances of January 2006 will, after shuddering a little, recognise just how strong a candidate he was) but also a former Campaigns Officer with a good record of victories.

Having a Scot in the role should help ensure that feathers stay unruffled over how the party’s campaigning …

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Posted in News | Tagged and | 5 Comments
Mark Pack

Why I’m not celebrating over Brian Coleman

By Mark Pack | Fri 11th September 2009 - 10:19 pm

Highly controversial Conservative London Assembly Member Brian Coleman is in the news again, though this time it’s not for an outrageous expense claim or the like.

The Barnet Standards Board has ruled that he broke the rulesfor sending an email that called the blogger Roger Tichbourne “an obsessive, poisonous individual”.

I’m not exactly over-joyed at the outcome. Yes, Brian Coleman has once again behaved stupidly. Yes, he deserves criticism. But should such matters really be up for standards boards to rule on? I don’t think so. Let the actions of politicians be public and then let the voters or (if it’s …

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Posted in Op-eds | Tagged | 6 Comments
Mark Pack

Parliamentary candidates can now keep their home addresses secret

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

A few months ago there was quite a controversy in Parliament over attempts to allow MPs to keep their home addresses secret at election time. A large part of the controversy stemmed from the unsatisfactory way part of the debate was handled in Parliament – which fuelled suspicion about some MPs wanting to keep their addresses secret in order to make it harder for people to work out whether they were exploiting rules over Parliamentary expenses.

Anyway, after debate back and forth the law was changed and the new rules are now in force, courtesy of the Political Parties and Elections Act 2009. These rules only apply to Parliamentary elections and by-elections, so the first outing for them is likely to be in the by-election to replace Michael Martin.

What, then, do the rules say?

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Posted in Election law and News | 8 Comments
Mark Pack

Youth Justice Board replace the £1m consultant

By Mark Pack | Fri 11th September 2009 - 7:50 am

Last month I blogged about the Youth Justice Board paying £1m over three years to one IT manager, employed as a consultant. They have now decided to end this arrangement and instead employ a normal member of staff, at much lower cost:

An IT consultant who cost the Youth Justice Board (YJB) £336,000 last year is to be replaced by a permanent employee on a regular pay grade, CYP Now can reveal.

The move, which could save the YJB more than £200,000 a year, comes on the back of concerns raised over the high cost of employing chief information officer Mike

…

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Mark Pack

Will there be a cull of ministers after the next general election?

By Mark Pack | Thu 10th September 2009 - 8:55 am

Whoever wins the next general election, they will have to make some tough choices about public  spending. Will they dare look very close to home though?

In late 1914 when Britain ruled much of the world and was fighting a world war, there were a total of 49 ministers. Gordon Brown’s government currently has 119 ministers – an increase of 143%.

Some of the growth is for reasons most people across most parties would support, such as the creation of the National Health Service resulting in the creation of some new roles. But those areas of ‘consensus growth’ are relatively small, and …

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Posted in Op-eds | Tagged , and | 3 Comments
Mark Pack

New electoral registration rules now in force for elections

By Mark Pack | Wed 9th September 2009 - 11:50 am

Good news: this time, it is a change in election law that is a jolly good thing. In the past, although the electoral register is updated each month, there was a pause over the summer and early autumn whilst councils carry out their big annual update. That means that for elections held during the pause, there was no way for people who had recently moved in to the area to get on the register. They therefore lost their right to vote in the election.

But now new rules, which came into force on 4 September, mean that such people who have recently moved in can get on the register and vote.

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

Gender pay gap in City ‘shocking’ – BBC

By Mark Pack | Tue 8th September 2009 - 11:41 pm

News in via the BBC:

Men working in the UK’s financial sector receive five times more in bonus payments than women, according to a survey of 44 leading companies.

On average, women earn £2,875 compared with £14,554 for men, the Equality and Human Rights Commission found…

One of the main reasons for the vast difference in bonuses is that relatively few women reach the top ranks of financial firms where the biggest rewards are paid.

It comes on top of an average difference of 39% between men and women’s basic salaries…

John Cridland, deputy director general of business group the CBI, said parts of

…

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Posted in News | 1 Comment
Mark Pack

29% of seats have not changed hands since 1945

By Mark Pack | Tue 8th September 2009 - 4:20 pm

Cross-posted from The Wardman Wire:

A major part of the point of a democratic electoral system is that those elected to public office can be held to account by the public for their actions. The anger we often see over the behaviour of MPs – whether on matters of policy (such as the Iraq war) or on matters of probity (such as MPs’ expenses) – is often aggravated by an underlying lack of belief that MPs will in the normal course of events get held accountable for their actions. Hence the paucity of comments along the lines of “I can’t …

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

Argentina, Mexico liberalise drug laws

By Mark Pack | Tue 8th September 2009 - 10:20 am

In Mexico:

The Mexican government has enacted a law decriminalising the possession of small amounts of drugs, including cocaine and heroin.

Mexican prosecutors say the move does not amount to legalisation.

They say it is designed to prevent corrupt police from seeking bribes from small-time drug users, and to encourage addicts to seek treatment. (BBC)

In Argentina:

Argentina’s Supreme Court on Tuesday decriminalized the possession of small amounts of marijuana for personal use, tossing out tough provincial drug laws whose penalties it deemed unconstitutional.

The high court ruling protects “the privacy of adults who are responsible for their own conduct,” according to a court statement.

It

…

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

Tower Hamlets: Labour activist investigated over postal vote fraud

By Mark Pack | Tue 8th September 2009 - 7:25 am

From the Evening Standard:

Police are investigating allegations of postal vote fraud by a London activist linked to one of Labour’s highest-profile parliamentary candidates.

The Met is examining an email in which Anisur Rahman, a Labour branch secretary in Tower Hamlets, admits “helping” a dozen voters fill in postal vote forms for the European elections.

Mr Rahman then told Rushanara Ali, who will become Britain’s first Bangladeshi MP if she is elected in Bethnal Green and Bow, that he was encouraging other activists to do likewise “for the benefit of the party”.

Electoral Commission guidelines ban activists from helping voters to fill in ballot

…

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Posted in News | Tagged , and | 7 Comments
Mark Pack

Saving general election night: round-up of reaction

By Mark Pack | Mon 7th September 2009 - 9:57 pm

Crikey, there has been quite a response on this and other sites to the launch this morning of a campaign to save election night. Amongst the posts such as Andrew’s and Jonathan’s agreeing with the campaign there have been a range of queries and criticisms, such as Costigan, Darrell, Mark, Nick and Paul.

The issues people have raised over the campaign generally fall into four categories:

Cost: isn’t it more expensive to count on Thursday night? Yes – and no. Yes, in that often councils pay staff for counting on Thursday night (and whether or …

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Posted in General Election and News | 7 Comments
Mark Pack

What do councillors spend their time on?

By Mark Pack | Mon 7th September 2009 - 12:20 pm

ComRes has recently published the results of a survey it carried out earlier this year, asking over 500 councillors in England and Wales (but not Scotland) a wide range of questions.

One in particular which caught my eye was about how much time being a councillor took up, and where that time went:

Councillors spend the most hours per month attending council meetings and following this on committee work. On average, councillors spend about 19 hours a month attending council meetings. This is greatest among councillors serving in county councils who spend, on average, 24 hours a month attending council meetings. This

…

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Posted in Local government and Polls | Tagged | 1 Comment
Mark Pack

Save general election night!

By Mark Pack | Mon 7th September 2009 - 8:50 am

Yesterday’s Sunday Times reported how our traditional general election night is under threat from more and more councils wanting to move their count to a Friday.

Although there are some understandable reasons for this (principally the extra logistical burden of new checks against postal vote fraud), overall losing the drama of Thursday night through to the early hours of Friday morning would be a backwards step because:

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Posted in General Election and News | Tagged , and | 15 Comments
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