Mark Pack

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 [...] »

The Electoral Commission's report into the November 2009 Parliamentary by-election in Glasgow North East has condemned the Labour Party for breaking the Code of Conduct on postal voting, saying the party repeatedly failed to process postal vote forms promptly. »

A footnote to my post about the subsequent expenses revelations regarding the 21 Conservative MPs who voted down expenses reform in 2008, before the Daily Telegraph revelations forced everyone’s hand. Of the three Labour MPs now facing criminal charges, two also voted against reform (David Chaytor and Elliot Morley) whilst the third, Jim Devine, abstained [...] »

Earlier this week I highlighted how Nick Clegg’s speech laying out the foundations of the Liberal Democrat general election manifesto was based around four steps in which health and crime did not feature. Those two policy areas have been dominant in the party’s campaigning over the previous three general elections – in particular in marginal [...] »

I've said it before, and I'll say it again - because it is the only explanation that makes sense, isn't it? How else explain the bad timing, lack of forward planning and all round repeated indecision?  »

So you organise a public meeting. And you print a leaflet advertising it. But you don't put it through my door until 10 days after the meeting has happened. Oops.  »

This in from Peckham Liberal Democrats: Labour Councillor for Peckham Ward, Ola Oyewunmi has sensationally quit the party and applied to join the Liberal Democrats. In her letter of resignation she accused Labour of ‘running out of ideas, energy and time.’ Ola had been a member of the Labour party for more than 10 years [...] »

So reports the Lewisham News Shopper: A RACE and equality advisor to the Mayor [of Lewisham] has resigned from the Lewisham Labour Party claiming it runs an “apartheid system”. David Michael, chairman of Lewisham Local Police Consultative Group and Sir Steve Bullock’s advisor on community cohesion, was due to contest the Whitefoot ward in 2010 but has [...] »

Comparing the popularity of different words in the latest stories from the the Liberal Democrat, Conservative and Labour Party websites reveals striking differences in the messages being put out by each party online. Reproduced below are three word clouds, where the bigger a word is the more often it appeared on that party’s latest website stories. [...] »

Cross-posted from the Mandate blog: We've been crunching the post-conference numbers again, and here are the top fifteen Labour Cabinet members when it comes to gaining coverage over their party's conference in the print media and their online versions. Listed in order of volume of coverage, it's no surprise that Gordon Brown tops the list - or [...] »