Mark Pack

Left Foot Forward has an eye-catching headline today: 2010 will be the “television election” say social media experts, and in some ways it's certainly a welcome change for internet pundits to be talking down rather than talking up an imminent internet-fuelled revolution in British political campaigning. However, I think the post (or rather the people who [...] »

For the third general election in a row, the run-up is seeing numerous meetings and articles asking whether this election will be the first internet general election. However, much – in fact, nearly all – of the discussion falls into two traps which are common across political journalism in the UK. First, an undue focus on [...] »

Today's setting of the budget for 24 March means it's all but certain that the general election will be on 6 May, the date of the scheduled local elections. »

I’ve certainly criticised academics a few times for not really getting political campaigning – and so spending time looking in the wrong place (such as in my post on internet campaigning) but one exception to that certainly is Phil Cowley of Nottingham University. So it’s not a great surprise that the new Election 2010 blog [...] »

If you go to Amazon searching for “Why vote Liberal Democrat?”, edited by Danny Alexander and just published  by Biteback, you may be surprised to find yourself being presented instead with a book of the same title from 1997, written by William Wallace. The new book is misfiled by Amazon under the title “Why vote [...] »

I wrote the following piece from the Election 2010 edition of Behind The Spin, an online magazine for public relations students and young PR  practitioners, expanding on some of my previous posts: When it comes to numbers, coverage of politics in the UK tends to be rather mesmerised by opinion poll ratings and seat projections. However, there [...] »

In February 2010 I gave this talk as part of the "Distinguished Practitioners Series" at Nottingham University: Good afternoon, and thanks for inviting me to address you today. The first time I visited Nottingham University was just over 15 years ago for a job interview when, in their wisdom, the panel decided not to offer me the [...] »

Electoral registration is run by local councils, so in order to get on the electoral register you need to fill in a form and return it to your local council. Filling in other paperwork, such as to do with paying Council Tax or getting a driving license, will not add you to the electoral register [...] »

Iain Martin’s general election commentary for the Wall Street Journal is rapidly become a must-read for me due to his record of unearthing useful bits of extra information that shed an extra light on the big political stories. This week he had a good piece on the Conservative Party’s preparation for televised party leader debates during [...] »

... is why there appears to be a group of Conservative supporters who (a) are convinced Gordon Brown is an indecisive bottler but also (b) at the slightest whiff of news (the sun has come up! a Labour councillor left his home 10 minutes earlier than usual! my mother's uncle's nephew works at the council [...] »