Sky News Politipack
Cartoons of British political figures on playing cards published to promote Sky News' coverage of Election Night 2005.
This pack of cartoons of British political figures was published in 2005 by Sky News. The cartoons were drawn by Matt Buck, a political cartoonist who works under the name “Hack”. Three suits portray individual from the three major British political parties: diamonds – the Labour Party; clubs – the Conservative party; hearts – the Liberal Party. The spade suit displays cartoons of Sky news presenters together with Adam Boulton, the former editor-at-large of Sky News. Alongside the single corner index on each card is a symbol denoting the Party or grouping.
Above: Politipack playing cards to promote Sky News' coverage of Election Night 2005.
By Peter Burnett
Member since July 27, 2022
I graduated in Russian and East European Studies from Birmingham University in 1969. It was as an undergraduate in Moscow in 1968 that I stumbled upon my first 3 packs of “unusual” playing cards which fired my curiosity and thence my life-long interest. I began researching and collecting cards in the early 1970s, since when I’ve acquired over 3,330 packs of non-standard cards, mainly from North America, UK and Western Europe, and of course from Russia and the former communist countries.
Following my retirement from the Bodleian Library in Dec. 2007 I took up a new role as Head of Library Development at the International Network for the Availability of Scientific Publications (INASP) to support library development in low-income countries. This work necessitated regular training visits to many sub-Saharan African countries and also further afield, to Vietnam, Nepal and Bangladesh – all of which provided rich opportunities to further expand my playing card collection.
Since 2019 I’ve been working part-time in the Bodleian Library where I’ve been cataloguing the bequest of the late Donald Welsh, founder of the English Playing Card Society.
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