Congratulations to Shaffaq Mohammed and Mark Pack who have been appointed to the House of Lords!
Cllr Shaffaq Mohammed has been Leader of the Liberal Democrat Group on Sheffield Council for 13 years and was a former Member of the European Parliament for Yorkshire and the Humber. He was a youth worker before he got directly involved in politics.
Back in 2011, he wrote about his story, from a boy in Kashmir to Leader of Sheffield Lib Dems. More recently he has been chairing a Carers’ Commission for Ed Davey, developing policy which has been so prominent in our campaigning as a party.
Dr Mark Pack has been no stranger to Lib Dem Voice, having been one of our founding editors and a prolific contributor over the years. His term of office as President of the Liberal Democrats comes to an end next year.
His early involvement with the party was at Lib Dem HQ where he served as Head of Innovations, bringing the party into the digital age. Although Mark has never stood for political office, he has acted as an energetic campaigner behind the scenes, developing real expertise in political campaigning, polling and electoral law.
There is a more detailed account of our two new peers here.
Mark and Shaffaq join Caroline Pidgeon, former Leader of the Lib Dems on the London Assembly, who was made a peer earlier this year.
We now have a comment from Ed Davey on their appointments:
Shaffaq and Mark are both a credit to the Liberal Democrats and I am delighted that they will both be bringing their experience to our group in the House of Lords.
Shaffaq has been an incredible public servant for over two decades through his work in Sheffield and will bring huge expertise on local government and communities. Mark Pack has dedicated himself to making politics more open and transparent, and will bring deep knowledge of electoral law and constitutional matters.
I am delighted to welcome them both to Parliament, where Liberal Democrats across both Houses are working tirelessly to deliver the effective opposition the British people need.
* Mary Reid is a contributing editor on Lib Dem Voice. She was a councillor in Kingston upon Thames, where she is still very active with the local party, and is the Hon President of Kingston Lib Dems.
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29 Comments
Two outstanding choices by Ed Davey.
I see the Lib Dem candidate for Finchley in 2019 has got a peerage.
Her reward for re-ratting?
Nice but we really should have gotten Shaffaq into the house of commons, not stuffed him into the lord’s after failing to adequately resource what was our most winnable labour held seat.
Instead we tried to throw most of our northern membership at racking up unnecessarily large majorities in three seats that we’d already been gaurrunteed to win ever since partygate.
Has Mark Pack ever stood for public office?
Because if not, then why are we handing out a peerage to someone who may be very well known to party activists – but who knows about him outside that circle?
@David Le Grice we need peers from the north of England, don’t know how many but not as many as from south east! Shaffaq is now in place in Westminster till the Lords disappears, so more effort can be made in parliamentary seats in the north – particularly bearing in mind the the North East has not even got a target seat
@nonconformistradical I am not sure whether Mark has ever stood for public office, but I on’t think that is relevant.
I have been a complete and utter pain in the arse to him as President and I disagree with many of the reforms he has put in place during his term. However, I don’t doubt for one second his commitment to and ambition for the party. I applaud the fact that he chose to basically put his life on hold for 6 years to take on one of the most thankless roles we have and I am well aware how many people he has helped get elected over time. He has travelled the length and breadth of the country, often at his own expense, for many years helping campaigns and delivering training.
One of his jobs as a Peer will be to scrutinise legislation. Anyone who has seen him in action trying to get rid of extraneous commas in election regulations will not doubt his eye for detail.
I happily congratulate Mark on his new role. I am sure I will find much to disagree and agree with him in the future.
Just to agree with every word Caron has said.
A peer does not have to be known by anyone outside the party, they have to work hard scrutinising legislation, as a Lib Dem, and Mark will be excellent at that, and do it with a Lib Dem heart.
there are many that would make good peers and are hardly known at all. He is too old now but my husband would have been brilliant. He could terrify council officers with his incisiveness! His job meant he had to keep a very low profile it his productive years, and he would not have been a good campaigner except for solidly doing all the right things locally when he could. there will be many like him. He would have worked hard to abolish H of L too!
There’s a recent article on Mark Pack’s website showing his first Focus leaflet which answers the public office query.
Agree that more resources should have been diverted to Sheffield Hallam in the last election and made comment on here about the risk of being too SE/Home counties centred, but most felt it was a fair call to concentrate on those areas.
@CaronLindsay I agree that Mark Pack has worked very hard for the party not just during his time as party President but for a long time prior.
However he must have a source of funding that is beyond the vast majority of us who aren’t able to spend several years performing a voluntary role. I can’t even afford to attend conference!
The party often looks like a middle class bubble to this former blue collar worker and despite my occassional ramblings nothing has changed since I supported the Liberal Democrats in 2010.
How many of our peers have done manual shift work for a number of years, regularly putting in extra hours just to make ends meet, I think I know the answer!
@Dave Warren, understand completely what you are saying, and, for instance, many good PPCs are not able to take the time off work to put in the mega amounts of time and work needed to win.
But I don’t see Mark’s peerage as being a reward for past work, but for what he can contribute to the party in the future by being in the H of L.
of course not all can show what they can contribute, only a little for instance in what I said about a job that restrict political activity, or caring responsibilities and so on.
Exactly David W. Outside of leafy suburbia in the Southeast/west , plenty of people are putting in long hours in thankless jobs and earning a weekly salary the equivalent of turning up at the Lord’s for one days ‘legislative scrutiny’.
Mark Pack has just co-authored a pamphlet with policy review member, and former FPC member, Jim Williams.
Called “What next for the Lib Dems?”, it can be found over on Mark Pack’s website.
This is a pretty thorough discussion of the strategic electoral choices to be made with a view to the 2029 general Election.
It’s a very fine piece of work.
Mark Pack most certainly has stood for public office. He fought the Fishergate and Acomb wards in North Yorkshire and York in 1993, 1994 and 1995 whilst he was an undergraduate.
@Suzanne Fletcher @Craig Levene
Thanks. My point is that we really have to change the mindset. I have lost count of the number of hours I have put into political activities first while doing a full time job then later as a family carer.
When I was doing shift work that was tough.
I can fully appreciate why people who have led a life like mine haven’t progressed far in politics and that needs to change.
@David Warren
“I can fully appreciate why people who have led a life like mine haven’t progressed far in politics and that needs to change.”
I haven’t led a life like yours but I appreciate where you’re coming from – we do need a broader spectrum of people involved as representatives on various levels of authority from town/parish council through to parliament.
When there’s a Labour government we have a much better chance of making inroads into Labour areas – which must be one of our priorities from now on, starting with regaining control of local authorities in Labour towns and cities.
@Nonconformistradical
Thanks!
I continue to hold my concerns about doling out a peerage to someone unknown to the wider public. Nothing to do with my feelings about anything Mark Pack has done for the party and whether or not I support his actions.
Giving a peerage to a party apparatchik may work for large parties.
For smaller parties it’s a different matter.
From the public viewpoint…. Mark Pack? Who he?
If Dick Newby, Tim Clement-Jones or Alison Suttie ever sought or held elected office then it is so minor as to not feature on their wikipedia pages and I doubt had any meaningful name recognition among the general public
Peers very rarely have a significant public profile. As someone who now lives outside the rariefied environment of party activism I almost never notice what a member of the house of lords does and I’d only see one if I made an effort to seek out some relatively arcane political newsource. It’s real bubble-think to believe that any Lib Dem peer not a past MP is ‘known to the general public’
Some of the comments about ‘having a source of funding that is beyond the vast majority of us’ feel a bit unpleasant to me.
(Not making any criticism of those three – they were the first three names I spotted who I didn’t immediately know of a past electoral record)
Tim Clement-Jones stood for the Clapham Park ward of Lambeth in a by-election in 1979 and for the Streatham Hill ward of Lambeth Council in 1982. He again stood for Streatham Hill in 1986, losing by just 4 votes.
Party members who complain about our Parliamentarians coming from privileged backgrounds would do well to read Isabel Hardman’s book “Why we get the wrong politicians”. As part of her research for this book she interviewed 554 Parliamentary candidates after the 2015 General Election. The average monetary loss for Liberal Democrat candidates as a result of standing for Parliament was £26,608 (p. 19 in the paperback edition).
She also recounts the saddening experience of Vikki Slade (now, thankfully, MP for Mid Dorset and North Poole since July 2024) and how much not holding the seat for the Lib Dems in the 2015 General Election cost her personally when she succeeded Annette Brooke MP as the Lib Dem candidate (pp. 20-21). Two more losing campaigns in in 2017 and 2019 fortunately did not deter her. Our Party makes some very severe demands on those who would wish to represent it in Parliament and everyone needs to recognise this.
@Hywel I would be interested to know why you find my account regarding funding a
bit unpleasant to you.
@Laurence Cox Isabel Hardman’s book is a good read and gives plenty of evidence of how being a parliamentary candidate these days can be very expensive.
As Liberals we need to look at our history. One of the reasons why Labour overtook the Liberal Party electorally in the early part of the last century was the latters failure to adopt working class candidates, a mistake the Liberal Democrats are still making.
David Warren makes an interesting point……… and, of course, given M.P.s weren’t paid until 1911, the very vast majority of people able to afford to be an M.P. back then were the well to do.
Asquith, for example, married (secondly) the daughter of probably the richest men in Scotland (Sir Charles Tennant), and his brother-in-law Jack Tennant spent thousands in his unsuccessful campaign in Berwick and Haddington in 19
Asquith’s house at Sutton Courtney was financed by J.P. Morgan…………. and we haven’t mentioned the humble cottager, David Lloyd George, yet, though his house at Walton Heath in Surrey was provided by the newspaper tycoon George Riddell.
Asquith, incidentally, voted against M.P.’s getting a travel allowance to their constituencies.
Now the pregnant bump I had as a PPC is 18 years of age and studying politics himself I really am going to have to pass the torch to someone else on this campaign – but still we have no safeguards for PPCs re maternity leave.
As for Isabel Hardman’s figure on monetary loss for PPCs, it is very interesting but surprisingly low.
Ruth Bright – please do. Delighted to hear your son is doing well and I daresay he will be a candidate for election himself before long. But “maternity leave” for a voluntary position is completely nonsensical. You can do as much, or as little, as you please as a parliamentary candidate. The whole point is to recruit a team around you who can help.
Ah Christmas day is over and I simply knew there would be a comment like that waiting for me! What is remotely wrong with maternity leave for a voluntary position Lyell? I have reverted to my maiden name so perhaps you would have the courtesy to use that name too.
@Ruth: How could maternity leave for a voluntary position work? Presumably you’d simply have to say that you can’t do the work for the maternity period – which means you hope someone else will volunteer to fill in in the meantime – and if no-one else is available and willing to volunteer, then the role will simply be vacant since you can’t force people to volunteer. Because you’re not being paid for voluntary work, there won’t be any money involved. That all doesn’t seem any different from what would informally happen today if someone feels they temporarily can’t fulfill a voluntary role due to childbirth (or any other life circumstance). So I don’t see what could possibly change if you formalised maternity leave for voluntary work (other than adding some bureaucratic burden to societies and organisations that rely on volunteers). What am I missing?
Hi Simon
It is about protection. This is not about me but about the younger female candidates of the future, but to use my example, I was asked to conduct PPC duties when recovering from a Caesarean (6 weeks recovery minimum). I was also asked (initially) to fight a re-selection where the hustings would have taken place just days before giving birth.
I proposed a 6 month scheme, recruiting volunteer cover. As a retired PPC I volunteered to cover. The party continually blocked this scheme.