Mark Pack

1 day ago | markpack.org.uk | Mark Pack

A bumper 10 principal authority council by-elections this week and let’s kick off with a Liberal Democrat hold with a big swing from previously second-place Labour:Note also the absence of a Conservative candidate at all even thought this is in Shadow Chancellor Mel Stride’s constituency. Congratulations to new councillor Tim Stanford and the team.

3 days ago | markpack.org.uk | Mark Pack

Liberal Democrat Newswire #198 came out earlier in the week and you can now also read it in full below. But if you’d like to get future editions emailed direct to you as soon as they are published, just sign up now: Welcome to Lib Dem Newswire #198 and I should start with condolences and sympathies to the family and the many friends of David Boyle, the writer, policy thinker and former editor of Liberal Democrat News, who died just a couple of days ago.

3 days ago | markpack.org.uk | Mark Pack

The Warwickshire County Council website has the news of the departure after six weeks of Cllr Rob Howard as council leader:Much to his regret, the Leader of Warwickshire County Council, Cllr Rob Howard, has today (25 June) resigned from his role. Cllr Howard said “This has been a very difficult decision to take. The role of Leader is an extremely demanding role and regretfully my health challenges now prevent me from carrying out the role to the level and standard that I would wish.

3 days ago | markpack.org.uk | Mark Pack

New data is out from the annual British Social Attitudes survey:Support for electoral reform has reached a new high– A record 60% are in favour of changing the electoral system ‘to allow smaller parties to get a fairer share of MPs’, rather than keeping the current system (36%). – This change is backed by a majority of supporters of all parties and by those with low levels of trust and confidence in government.

3 days ago | buff.ly | Mark Pack

The first of my write-ups of the books about the 2024 general election was for Anushka Asthana’s Taken As Red: How Labour Won Big and the Tories Crashed the Party. It has now come out in paperback, with a new subtitle of The Truth About Starmer’s Labour and with the previous cover showing a map of Britain replaced with the 10 Downing Street front door. Its appearance is a good excuse to remind you of what I made of the original edition.