Mark Pack

Welcome to the twentieth and last (phew!) in a series of posts going through the full coalition agreement section by section. You can read the full coalition document here. Traditionally the transport sections of party manifestos contain commitments to various expensive, long-term public expenditure projects. In the current financial climate it is no surprise that the coalition agreement’s [...] »

News from the Tim Farron campaign camp: Following the announcement by Vince Cable that he will be stepping down as Deputy Leader to concentrate on his new role as Secretary of State for Business, Tim Farron MP has been urged by colleagues to stand for the position of Deputy Leader of the Liberal Democrats. Commenting Tim said: “Having [...] »

Welcome to the sixth in a series of posts going through the full coalition agreement section by section. You can read the full coalition document here. Despite the importance of the two areas, these are two of the shortest sections in the agreement, reflecting how there are a small number of dominating issues. For defence there is the [...] »

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 [...] »

As The Voice and others have covered this week, the Liberal Democrat policy on a Euro-referendum – or not – has been in the news. Understandably the media reports have caused some confusion over what the party’s current policy is – and on this occasion I don’t think the media is to blame. The party’s policy [...] »

Public Servant magazine has run a piece from me titled, "Is Google coming to government?" Here's what I wrote: A smart public sector decision maker needs to understand not only that that people now expect information to be available online but also that by putting it there it can spark a whole new set of [...] »

Here are the three main lines promoted by the party from conference to the media in the last 24 hours: Liberal Democrat Autumn Conference unveils plans to increase the pay of Britain’s lowest-earning troops by £6,000, improve the condition of forces’ housing, and ensure proper medical provision for all personnel. The proposals, which would mean that no [...] »

In the past it’s never really occurred to me to lobby my MP about who they were going to support in a contest for Speaker of the House of Commons. I’ve seen those contests as largely internal affairs, with MPs knowing the candidates and their likely ability to do their job far better than me, [...] »