Mansfield too much focus on self-publicity, as opposed to publicity for the town. The issue was raised again after his prominent role in Olympic swimmer Rebecca Adlington's homecoming ceremony following her Gold Medal successes at the 2008 Beijing Olympic games. In April 2017, Sophie Whitby was elected to represent the Mansfield district as Member of Youth Parliament, on a manifesto which included promoting equality for the LGBT community. Benjamin Bradley has been the constituency (Conservative) Member of Parliament since May 2017, succeeding Sir Alan Meale (Labour), who served the town for thirty years. From 2010 the Parliamentary Constituency boundaries were realigned
Mansfield Town F.C. in a different and non-aggressive way. This included hiring a plane to fly over the local derby match with Notts County towing a banner declaring that the club was for sale and calling for Haslam to leave. On 29 November 2007 Haslam rejected a bid from James Derry's consortium and the Mansfield fans pledged to have a TV protest against him on 2 December 2007 against Harrogate Railway Athletic live on the BBC's "Match of the Day" programme. In March 2008, it was reported that John Batchelor, a bidder for Mansfield Town, planned to rename the club to Harchester United