The Wardman Wire

Mark Pack is Associate Director, Digital at Mandate and one of the team running the Lib Dem Voice group blog. He writes here in a personal capacity. Mark blogs at www.markpack.org.uk and is on Twitter as @markpack.

The liberal versus authoritarian spectrum is one that cuts across traditional party lines to a significant degree. For example, you’ll find principled and firm opponents of I.D. cards not just in the Liberal Democrats, but also in both the Labour and Conservative parties.
But because it cuts across party lines, the individual records of MPs in [...]

Mark Pack argues that evidence shows that Twitter has potential for influence in local politics.

It’s become something of a truism for believers in the utility of Twitter in politics to say, “Of course it’s no good for local campaigning, but…” usually ending with a point about motivating activists or joshing with journalists.

Those certainly are uses for Twitter, but I’ve always been puzzled by the dismissal of Twitter’s local power. That is partly because I’ve found interesting but previously unknown to me people living nearby who I get fun or useful information from via Twitter. If I can find a local community for non-political purposes, surely a politician can too for their purposes, especially as they have a much readier supply of interesting local information to share?

Over the last few years a wide range of attempts have been made to raise turnout at elections in the UK. The broad conclusion is very simple: all-postal ballots raise turnout significantly (albeit at the cost of various drawbacks) and nothing else that has been tried does so. E-voting, early voting, voting by text, and [...]

Although this summer’s Parliamentary by-election in Norwich North kicked off much subsequent debate about the alleged benefits of Friday (rather than Thursday night) counts after it was counted on a Friday, a close reading of the Electoral Commission’s report into the Norwich North by-election reveals that in fact the Norwich experience undermines the case made [...]