Mark Pack

Credit where credit is due, today’s Telegraph interview with Nick Clegg covers a range of substantive policy issues and gives the Deputy Prime Minister the space to give nuanced answers where the question requires them. The biggest story is Clegg’s clear steer on a graduate tax as the way to square financial demands with the [...] »

Today’s Telegraph has a piece looking at the large sums being spent by many councils on new or revamped websites. In itself, an expensive website is not necessarily a poor use of funds as good, popular sites often also save costs (e.g. by reducing the number of phonecalls the council has to handle). As a result, [...] »

Each round of newspaper circulation figures makes grim reading for anyone trying to balance the books at a newspaper. Month after month circulation is dropping away across the board. The usual explanation is that newspapers are suffering because so much free news is now available online, and there is certainly a large degree of truth [...] »

Welcome to a series where old posts are revived for a second outing for reasons such as their subject has become topical again, they have aged well but were first posted when the site’s readership was only a tenth or less of what it is currently or they got published and the site crashed, hiding [...] »

The Press Gazette reports: Former Labour backbench MP Frank Cook has filed a libel writ against the Sunday Telegraph over a front-page story from May 2009 about his expenses. He is demanding damages of up to £50,000 from publishers Telegraph Media Group over a front page story and two inside pieces in May 2009 in [...] »

On Friday the Guardian ran this piece from me: Telegraph's attack on Danny Alexander is rich Danny Alexander's behaviour wasn't a patch on the sort of tax avoidance measures the Telegraph repeatedly recommends On Monday the Daily Telegraph's personal finance editor, Ian Cowie, wrote of the paper's story about Liberal Democrat MP Danny Alexander and [...] »

The Independent ran this piece from my yesterday: There was no need for The Telegraph to run a snatched doorstep photo of David Laws's partner – but it is standard fare for political coverage across the media After years when ministers were far too reluctant to resign, clinging on to their jobs regardless of criticism, [...] »

In a shocking list of advice being given out about capital gains tax, MPs were told: “Don’t forget to claim expenses” “Become a butterfly and flit between homes” “Exploit personal allowances and minimise rates” and more. The advice urges people to make use of “a range of little-known tax breaks” and quotes a tax advisor saying, “It is possible [...] »

So here are the facts as we know them (and see his statement that Helen blogged): In 1999 – 2006 he and his wife owned one property (in London) In 2005 he became an MP In 2006 he bought a house in his constituency. That house has been designated his main home for Parliamentary expense purposes. In 2007 they [...] »

A poll carried out exclusively for Lib Dem Voice shows that opposition from the Daily Mail, The Sun and Daily Telegraph to the Liberal Democrats actually makes people more likely to vote for the party. Asked the impact on their voting intention of those papers opposing Nick Clegg becoming Prime Minister, 15% said it made them [...] »