Mark Pack

I'm an author and, since January 2020, President of the Liberal Democrats. My books include 101 Ways To Win An Election and Bad News, and I also host the Never Mind The Bar Charts podcast. I worked for the Liberal Democrats 2000-2009, including a period as Head of Innovations and running the party's digital and data operation for the 2001 and 2005 general elections. In 2015 I wrote with David Howarth the seminal pamphlet on the party's strategy: The 20% Strategy: building a core vote for the Liberal Democrats. I also helped found and then later was co-editor of Liberal Democrat Voice and now edit Liberal Democrat Newswire, the monthly email newsletter about the Liberal Democrats. Outside the Liberal Democrats, I have worked in IT in both the public and private sectors and between 2009 and 2019 was a communications and crisis consultant, including stints as Head of Digital at MHP Communications and Associate Director at Teneo. I have also been a member of the Electoral Commission's Political Parties Panel and a Visiting Lecturer at City University in the Journalism Department. I have a history PhD from the University of York, looking at nineteenth-century elections. I've appeared on many media outlets, including BBC Breakfast, BBC2, BBC News 24, Newsnight, Sky News, The Westminster Hour, The World at One, Radio 5 Live and LBC, and spoken at many events and conferences on politics, electoral law and internet matters. I've had pieces published in The Guardian, The Independent, New Statesman, Parliamentary Brief and elsewhere, including academic journals.