Mark Pack

At the book’s title suggests, Peter Mandelson’s memoirs The Third Man do not hold back from placing himself not only at the heart of New Labour but also at its top, variously using the phrases the three musketeers or the triumvirate to describe himself and the two Prime Ministers, Tony Blair and Gordon Brown. Mandelson [...] »

Throws a bit of a spanner in the works of the Labour rhetoric about how awful anyone who contemplates raising VAT is: Amid reported wrangling between No 10 and the Treasury, Lord Mandelson suggested in his memoir that Mr Brown rejected a proposal from the chancellor to raise VAT while Mr Darling quashed calls for [...] »

… the last you thing you want is to be caught red-handed indulging in a bit of, er…, illegal copying online. Step forward and take a bow: the Labour Party (front bench voted for the Digital Economy Bill) Followed by a bow please from the Conservative Party (front bench voted for the Digital Economy Bill) For as The [...] »

Yikes. Not quite sure what’s the most surprising from the interview I’ve just watched. The good joke from Gordon Brown about Peter Mandelson or the collapse of David Cameron, who asks for the interview to stop, turns to his minder off camera and asks for a different style of questioning. Watch the interview here. And no sniggering [...] »

It’s Sunday. It’s 9am. It’s time for photographs of bollards, but first the news. 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: The Mood at Lib Dem Conference: Nick Thornsby takes the pulse The Saturday List: Lib Dem Constituency Songs: Will [...] »

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 [...] »

There are two major problems with Lord Mandelson's desire to crack down on illegal file-sharing by using an awful lot of stick and no carrot. First, it means he's come up with proposals that avoid the boring old-fashioned stuff like innocent until proven guilty and no punishment without a fair process. Second, though, it also [...] »

The Digital Economy Bill currently going through Parliament would give Peter Mandelson huge powers to rewrite the country’s copyright laws in future – and all without much in the way of Parliamentary scrutiny or checks and balances. But Liberal Democrat peer Tim Clement-Jones has tabled an amendment to the Digital Economy Bill to delete the controversial Clause [...] »

I support the campaign by the Open Rights Group and others against Peter Mandelson's proposed crackdown on illegal file-sharing. (You can support the campaign yourself here.) But in agreeing to call the proposals "three strikes and you're out", I think the campaign has ceded an important advantage to Peter Mandelson & co. That is because, taken on [...] »

Leaving aside the extremely hard-line nature of Peter Mandelson’s proposals for a crackdown on illegal file sharing, there is a more fundamental question about what the impact of illegal file sharing really is on the music industry. To what extent does the distribution of songs this way take money away from sales and to what [...] »