Mark Pack

It’s Sunday. It’s 9am. It’s time for the best pothole photo, ever. FACT. But first, some other stuff. 2 Must-Read Blog Posts What are other Liberal Democrat bloggers saying? Here are two posts that have caught the eye from the Liberal Democrat Blogs aggregator: Fraser Macpherson has the party’s latest Scottish TV broadcast The Futility Monster ponders how many [...] »

STV reports: Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg says that the Chilcot Inquiry into the Iraq War has provided enough information to suggest that the war was illegal. Speaking on Radio Tay on Friday morning at the same time Prime Minister Gordon Brown was facing questions at the inquiry in London, he said: “I’m not a lawyer, but [...] »

Despite some alarms along the way, the rules are now set for the first-ever head-to-head general election debates in the UK a mere 46 years after the first suggestion. (And no, yawn yawn, it isn’t only in the US that such debates take place: the US wasn’t first and the US isn’t a particularly good place [...] »

I pointed out before that the key to getting a boost in support out of TV leader debates isn’t so much winning the debate as beating expectations: if people expected you to do dreadfully and you come out doing ok that’s almost always a boost to a campaign, whilst being seen as doing ok when [...] »

So, how to explain what Alistair Darling has been up to with his comments about Number 10 unleashing the forces of hell on him? Let’s go for the carefully plotted conspiracy theories first (warning: may contain irony). Explanation number one: it’s all a clever plot to make sure the Conservatives win the general election and are then [...] »

The political impact of TV debates in other Parliamentary democracies (and yes, yawn yawn, obligatory American reference, in the US too) has often been more about expectations than about absolute performance. Beat expectations and you benefit from the debate, even if that means people viewed you as the narrow loser. But if you were expected [...] »

When I sat down to read Peter Watt’s memoirs, Inside Out, I was curious to find the answer to two questions. First, I’d met him regularly at Electoral Commission meetings before he became Labour’s General Secretary and he always struck me as a bright, enthusiastic – and young – person. When he was appointed General Secretary [...] »

The public overwhelmingly backs major  changes to the way our electoral system is run according to a new poll commissioned by the Joseph Rowntree Reform Trust. Just under two-thirds of people (65%) agree that, “This country should adopt a new voting system that would give parties seats in Parliament in proportion to their share of votes” [...] »

In amongst all the heat and not very much light over the Gordon Brown and bullying story, I was disturbed by this claim from the National Bullying Helpline's Christine Pratt: Ms Pratt added: "Over recent months we have had several inquiries from staff within Gordon Brown's office. "Some have downloaded information; some have actually called our helpline [...] »

One from the "it sounded fine at the time but now sounds a tad ironic" files, dated March 2007: Gordon Brown wrote in the News of the World back in 2007 that, "If we are to beat bullying, we must teach every young person it is unacceptable. This is a responsibility we all share."  »