Mark Pack
@markpackuk.bsky.social
Lib Dem Life Peer. Party President 2020-5. Author, "Polling UnPacked" / http://www.theweekinpolls.co.uk / https://libdemnewswire.substack.com / imprint + privacy http://markpack.org.uk/legal-privacy / he/him
Kemi Badenoch’s dismissive attitude towards local government
Kemi Badenoch's dismissive attitude towards local government
Kemi Badenoch's defence of her party selection a former neo-Nazi is that is okay, but it is for a council election rather than for Parliament.
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Local MSP Alex presses Scottish Government on Child Care Provision
Local MSP Alex presses Scottish Government on Child Care Provision
Alex Cole-Hamilton, Liberal Democrat MSP for Edinburgh North Western has questioned the Scottish Government on their commitment to the expansion of childcare provisions.
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Kemi Badenoch’s dismissive attitude towards local government
Kemi Badenoch's dismissive attitude towards local government
Kemi Badenoch's defence of her party selection a former neo-Nazi is that is okay, but it is for a council election rather than for Parliament.
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Could it be you? New vacancy listed on Lib Dem website: Business & Entrepreneurs Engagement Lead
Business & Entrepreneurs Engagement Lead
The Business & Entrepreneurs Engagement Lead is responsible for the Party's engagement with business, entrepreneurs and wider sector community, and for deepening our relationships with major donors and...
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Among the other issues with this... it's extremely dismissive of the importance of services that councils deliver and which have huge effects on people's lives, such as their roles in education, child protection or social care.
Chris Terry-Enescu@cjterry.bsky.social · 10h agoIt's OK for criminal ex-neo Nazis to run your bins is a hell of a line.
Other government compensation schemes get uprated for inflation. But infected blood victims' payments don't - and the government's explanation doesn't stand up to scrutiny: lordseyeview.substack.com/p/the-infect...
The infected blood scandal highlights the siloed nature of Whitehall
Welcome to my latest update on work in the House of Lords, this time taking a look at the siloed approach in Whitehall on how to handle compensation payments.
lordseyeview.substack.com
Some people think the Post Office Tower is in the middle of of a big city.
The government’s near-invisible power to veto legislation
The government's near-invisible power to veto legislation
As someone who has written about, and repeatedly raised in Parliament, questions about the quality and clarity of our laws, it was great...
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Today's the anniversary of the birth of Margaret Wintringham - the first female Liberal MP.
Forgotten Liberal heroes: Margaret Wintringham
Margaret Wintringham was the third woman to be elected an MP, the second to take her seat and the first to be a Liberal Party MP.
markpack.org.uk
Could it be you? New vacancy listed on Lib Dem website: Campaigns Manager for Eastbourne Constituency
Campaigns Manager for Eastbourne Constituency
This is an exciting opportunity to join the Eastbourne Liberal Democrats at a pivotal moment for local and national politics.
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The government's near-invisible power to veto legislation, featuring a welcome move by @hansardsociety.bsky.social - lordseyeview.substack.com/p/the-govern...
The government near-invisible power to veto legislation
Welcome to my latest update on work in the House of Lords, this time …Did someone share this with you?
lordseyeview.substack.com
Weirdly, despite repeated requests, I haven't had any invitations to Reform press events since I asked a month ago whether Farage was scared of questions about his finances.
Adam Bienkov@adambienkov.bsky.social · 2d agoNigel Farage just took a question from a 'journalist' at his press conference, who turned out to be his former chief adviser Raheem Kassam, who asks him why the media are being so unfair to him
Richard Tice investigated by parliamentary standards watchdog www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...
Richard Tice investigated by parliamentary standards watchdog
Tice says the complaint related to a debate on Israeli influence and whether he should have referenced his register of interests.
bbc.co.uk
Put the latest polls in context with PollBase: the biggest archive of UK voting intention polls, all the way back to 1943:
PollBase: Opinion polls database from 1938-today
Get PollBase, the largest database of British national voting intention opinion polls, starting in 1943 and updated each quarter.
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Pollsters were right, but also lucky, in Greater Manchester Mayor contest buff.ly/E8JFklJ
Pollsters were right, but also lucky, in Greater Manchester Mayor contest
This time, it’s another of my ‘how did the pollsters do?’ round-ups as we now have the reality of the Greater Manchester Mayoralty result against which we can judge how the pollsters performed.
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Ed Davey: "We don’t need tax rises on ordinary people to make this work. If you did things differently, you’d get better care and you’d save money."
Ed Davey: How to fix social care without raising taxes
The Lib Dem leader, who’s spent years caring for family, says the private sector should not be cut out
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It's the anniversary today of the murder of the world's last 'human calculator'.
Wim Klein: the last human calculator
One of CERN's lesser known claims to fame is that it employed Willem (known as Wim) Klein, an amazing human calculator.
markpack.org.uk
Visited Spike Milligan's gravestone in Winchelsea. It has in Gaelic "I told you I was ill"; not in English as a compromise with the diocese. Sadly both the gravestone and later addition of his third wife's name were the cause of some difficulty among his relations. But it's a fitting tribute.
"No, no, the skeletons were meant to be in our manifesto not in our candidates's cupboards"
Mark Chadbourn@chadbourn.bsky.social · 4d agoReform is drawing up a “skeleton manifesto” (as it essentially has no policies beyond immigration) and “speeding up candidate selection” in case there’s an early election. What could possibly go wrong?
The deadline for the LGA Liberal Democrat Group 2026/27 Next Generation programme is fast approaching, with applications closing on August 21. Find out more and apply at www.aldc.org/2026/07/next...
A small but telling example is how it is now the norm that an online search fails to turn up any news stories when a councilor switches or leaves their party.
Ed Jennings@edjennings.bsky.social · 5d agoVery much agree with much of this. As local news ecosystems have been hollowed out, there's little capacity for serious scrutiny at the scale required. We do what we can here in Kent, but I can't confidently say we have the resources to do what needs to be done under more powerful mayoralties.
There are some cracking letterboxes at the V and A East Storehouse. Not vertical, though.
This is spot on. The last government was not very responsive on this with the previous devolution bill. Let's hope the new PM is more responsive when the next one comes to Parliament.
Jennifer Williams@jenwilliamsft.bsky.social · 5d agoA bit on something that’s worrying me as.ft.com/r/9fe0cfe2-f...
Council by-election win for Lib Dems in marginal Westminster seat
Council by-election win for Lib Dems in marginal Westminster seat
Five principal authority council by-elections this week plus the one for the Mayor of Greater Manchester to replace Andy Burnham.
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