MP Wants Official Email Address Kept Private

nk497 writes "An MP in the UK has had his official email address removed from the parliamentary website, because he's tired of getting 'nuisance' emails via online campaign websites. MP Dominic Raab's parliamentary.uk email is currently not listed on the House of Commons' website following a spat with online campaigners 38 Degrees. 'Just processing the emails from your website absorbs a disproportionate amount of time and effort, which we may wish to spend on higher priorities, such as helping constituents in real need or other local or Parliamentary business,' he said, threatening to report the group to the government's data and privacy watchdog if they didn't remove the details from their own website. 38 Degrees says Raab gave them his personal email address during the election: 'it's only since he became a member of parliament with a taxpayer funded email address that he's now said he doesn't want to hear from people,' unless they're willing to shell out for a stamp to write him a letter. The lobby group said Raab likely averaged fewer than two emails from their site each day."

Comments

Bayes

[ls671]

Maybe he would be better off using some type of Bayesian classifier similar to the one SpamAssassin uses.

http://linux.die.net/man/1/sa-learn

It should work as well at classifying 'nuisance' emails as it does for classifying plain Spam as long as one trains it accordingly. Then, check the 'nuisance' emails at a lowest priority. He could also have his email go through several Bayesian filters, one trained to identify 'nuisance' emails and one trained to identify plain Spam. All email types could be handled differently.

In my experience, it's already too late to remove your email address from a web site when already too many people know it so it is not that efficient. Anyways, it seems like this guy might need some technical advise ;-)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bayes'_theorem

http://spamassassin.apache.org/

Re:Bayes

[mysidia]

He should get multiple 'public' e-mail addresses...

A binspam address published proudly on the website, a less-publicized email addy to give to constituents... and per-sender (sender-specific) e-mail addresses provided only to constituents and others who establish a meaningful conversation by sending a verifiably non-nuisance message

Re:Bayes

[mwvdlee]

It's about 700 e-mails a year from a single website; I think a simple domain name filter would suffice and still allow other citizens to send e-mail.

Re:Bayes

[ls671]

I already do something very similar to what you describe but that guy has to start somewhere ;-)

The Bayesian classifier is only a part of what SpamAssassin uses and using SpamAssassin is only a part of how one should handle emails.

Re:Bayes

[muphin]

yeah just block all @yahoo.com @gmail.com @hotmail.com address' and watch the spam count drop, who cares if your constituents use them, its their fault for using a service used for spam
</sarcasm>

Re:Bayes

[BrokenHalo]

Alternatively, he could adopt a Slashdot approach:

Create a "bounce" message saying "Your email has been intercepted by a lameness filter..."

Re:Bayes

[AVryhof]

Having run a mail server with a few hundred users, I have learned that people hate being told to run anti-spam software. They expect you to remove every piece of junk mail for them before it gets to their computer. Even with SpamAssassin, and subscriptions to most major spam and dnr databases in my configuration, people still complain, but refuse to run mail filters of their own.... and now you are dealing with someone who has a big enough ego to have gotten elected to public office, and will expect more done for him.... all I can say is good luck with that.

Re:Bayes

[zippthorne]

constituents and others who establish a meaningful conversation
by sending a verifiably non-nuisance message

Precisely. Then he can filter out the constituents he doesn't want to hear from and only listen to the ones with memberships at the yacht club, private jets for him to tool around in, choice seats at the <local sports team> or Opera house...

Re:Bayes

[ArmchairGeneral]

Better yet, filter all email addressed to @parliament.uk to the Spam folder. /fixed

Re:Bayes

[nlvp]

Are you sure that "from your website" wasn't shorthand for "people sent me mail because your website asked them to"? In this case each email would come from a different domain.

The way many of these campaigns work is that a group organises a mass mailing effort to swamp a member of parliament with emails on a single issue in order to force them to deal with the question. It's basically not far off a denial-of-service attack via email.

I agree that it can probably be dealt with using simple filtering because these websites typically provide the draft to be copy-pasted in the email, so the text is always very similar. It's still a fairly unpleasant political tactic, better to have a petition signed and send one document with a few thousand signatures.

Re:Bayes

[CastrTroy]

Then these emails really aren't nuisance emails, as they are actually voicing real concerns of his constituents. You don't have to read and respond to all your emails. Set up your filters appropriately. If you get a lot of email on a particular issue, maybe it's something that you should look into. Maybe it's something that people care about, and if you do something about it, you could get more votes. If I was one of his constituents, I would try to organize a mass letter writing campaign, and see how many people I could get to send him real mail. See if it's easier for him to deal with real mail, than it is to deal with emails.

Re:Bayes

[nlvp]

Yes, it's part of the modern method of communicating. Volume of mail isn't, however, perfectly correclated with the importance of a subject. It's correlated with the degree of organisation of the special interest group promoting the letter-writing campaign, and it damages the signal-to-noise ratio because all the letters on this subject become statistics.

A well-written letter with 300 signatures gets read. 300 letters that are all treat the same subject just get counted. It's not communication anymore, it's bandwidth control.

Re:Bayes

[sumdumass]

He probably has those emailed forwarded to him by ignorant constituents who think he should see them too. Your right, it's probably 700 emails from a particular website a year, but when you consider all the forwarding that might be going on, that 700 can turn into 140,000 if just 200 of his constituents forward it. And that creates a lot larger problem then blocking a single website. And I believe that 200 people wouldn't be a very large portion of his constituency. It's probably less then one percent.

lemme get this straight

[metalmaster]

a public official doesn't want to be contacted by the public? No one likes to hear the peasants out. Where's the story here?

Re:lemme get this straight

[Anonymous Coward]

yeah, receives a whole whopping 2 emails a day !

Re:lemme get this straight

[tsm_sf]

Whining about "shelling out" for sending a letter had me rolling my eyes. How important can a note be if the sender doesn't think it's worth a quarter to send it.

Re:lemme get this straight

[RogueyWon]

To put this in a bit of context:

I have at times worked in a central policy department in the UK civil service. Dealing with correspondence from MPs to our Minister, usually passing along letters or concerns from the MP's constituent, is a large part of the work of many junior (and mid-level) officials. In my most recent post during a Parliamentary term, the relatively small team I managed would usually have in the region of 20 such letters needing replies, with a week to turn each one around (and our policy area isn't even a particularly high profile one). For MPs, dealing with correspondence is a pretty big part of their job; representing their constituent's concerns in Parliament is what they are there to do, and is one of the ways they can show they are "in touch" with their constituency. The degree to which the MP chooses to get involved in the issue varies; sometimes the constituent's letter (or e-mail) is passed along with little more than "can I have some information so I can respond", but in other cases, the MP might request a meeting with one of the Department's ministers to discuss the issue further, or if he feels he is not getting a satisfactory answer, might raise the issue on the floor of the House of Commons. While officials draft the responses in these cases, Ministers always check them before they are issued and sometimes make edits, or ask officials to take follow-up action.

In any event, writing to your MP is the most effective recourse for a UK citizen who has a problem with the political establishment and most MPs take their duty seriously. Obviously, you are more likely to get positive engagement from your MP if you are writing about a tangible issue that wouldn't otherwise have come to light (eg. your small business is having problems with the planning system, or you believe your employer is violating health and safety law but have been ignored, or something of that ilk) than about one of the large and controversial topics (such as the Iraq war, or the bank bailouts) and MPs are always going to be less likely to get involved in a case that is clearly motivated by an ideology they don't share. But the fact remains that writing to your MP is far more effective than writing directly to a Minister (or the Prime Minister), as the latter will usually just yield a response drafted by an official that has never been near a Minister.

The problem is that in recent years, the system has been somewhat under siege by various pressure groups. These groups do direct, regular and repetitive mail-shots to MPs, with many of them even providing tools to make it easy for users of their website to join in on the action simply by filling in a form. They operate on the principle of "if we say something often and loud enough, then MPs will conclude we are important or in the majority". In reality, all they tend to do is gunk up the system with spam, as MPs struggle to identify the letters and e-mails from their own constituents, asking for help with issues where the MP might actually be of some use.

The MP in this case was wrong to have his official e-mail address taken off the Parliamentary website. That's where I'd expect that many of his constituents would start looking for his details to contact him. However, the greater fault here lies with the self-righteous pressure groups who see nothing wrong with trampling over the system by substituting volume for reasoned argument and resorting to the tactics of the spammer.

Re:lemme get this straight

[DrXym]

a public official doesn't want to be contacted by the public? No one likes to hear the peasants out. Where's the story here?

No he doesn't want to be deluged in shit by a multitude of "campaign" sites. Quite understandable really. The public most MPs want to hear from are the people who elected them in their borough not some random lunatic cutting and pasting a form letter from a website.

Re:lemme get this straight

[iserlohn]

And your point is? Email from these pressure groups are in no way invalid if they are from his constituents. Just because a Tory politician doesn't agree with the stance taken by pressure groups such as 38 degrees, doesn't give him the right to withdraw a valuable communications channel to his constituents. You can be sure that if those emails are in support of the MPs pet project, he would be openly inviting more email correspondence.

Re:lemme get this straight

[PeterBrett]

a public official doesn't want to be contacted by the public? No one likes to hear the peasants out. Where's the story here?

No he doesn't want to be deluged in shit by a multitude of "campaign" sites. Quite understandable really. The public most MPs want to hear from are the people who elected them in their borough not some random lunatic cutting and pasting a form letter from a website.

What about some lunatic who elected them in their constituency cutting and pasting a form letter from a website?

Re:lemme get this straight

[metalmaster]

Lobbying just isnt lobbying unless there are huge sums of money being tossed around. Am I right?

Re:lemme get this straight

[Leynos]

When you send an email from one of these web sites, you're supposed to email your own MP, not one picked at random. Therefore, the emails he is talking about are from his own constituents.

Re:lemme get this straight

[mister_dave]

The MP in this case was wrong to have his official e-mail address taken off the Parliamentary website.

He seems to have been following advice on how to opt-out of spam:

The reason I stopped formally advertising my actual email address is that the Information Commissioner's Office advised me that, if I do, I am putting it in the public domain and then cannot ask for it to be removed from mass e-distribution lists or automated systems.

Re:lemme get this straight

[delinear]

Well firstly in the UK it's actually just over a "third" rather than a "quarter" to send the message first class (and if it's important or time sensitive you'll want to send it first class), and much more if you want it recorded to ensure it arrives. You then have to get an envelope, if you don't have a printer you need to find some way to print it out (add on the cost of the paper and printer ink), you have to take the time to go buy these items and then you then have to take more time out to go post your letter and again wait several days to see if you get a response (at least with an email you should get a pretty instant "Thanks for your email", with a letter it could be delayed, lost in the post or just filed in this guy's waste bin and you have no way of knowning). There are all kinds of reasons to send an email over a letter, cost is a minor one, convenience is a much bigger one, and then there are "green" considerations, paperless is much kinder to the environment. When we're meant to be aiming for "Broadband Britain" it seems this guy is actually going backwards. What's the point encouraging schemes to put broadband in the homes of every voter in the UK just to turn around and tell them not to use it for email?

Re:lemme get this straight

[eyrieowl]

Hear, hear! The MP is not elected solely to represent the constituents who are not intimidated by trying to craft reasoned arguments that might sway an MP. They're also elected to represent the views of their many constituents who, on a given issue, may find that an interest group has articulated their position better than they themselves could, as well as those constituents whose opinion on some issues may be as concise as "yay" or "nay". If the MP isn't providing a better way for those constituents to bring those views to the MP's attention, the MP bears the blame for alternate methods of communication with them which spring up.

An enlightened MP would realize that there is an opportunity to create a system which furthers the needs of democracy. A system that works for and with the constituents as well as managing the "pressure groups". I think that if the MPs had a website similar to those used by the "pressure groups", one where citizens and/or pressure groups could add issues they are concerned about on their own, and one where individual citizens could pick the statements they agree with, enter their contact info, and be added to a simple tally for their MP, that much of the "spam" could be eliminated. If citizens wanted to add comments in their own words when agreeing with a position statement, those comments would be made available to their MP; otherwise, they would just be added to the tally for the position statement. Special interests could be encouraged to post their own position statements to the site and direct their partisans to go "agree" with it, they'd still be able to make known to MPs that "lots of us feel strongly about this position". Added bonus for them--they may be able to reduce their IT spend, in the basic case being able to make do with a very simple site that just links to the issues they are supporting on the Parliamentary issue site.

Anyhow, that's what I think an enlightened MP would do. Which Mr. Raab appears not to be.

Re:lemme get this straight

[jimicus]

AIUI, his point is that there are always going to be pressure groups trying to change an MPs mind over an issue.

In the past, they may have got together and drafted a letter saying "500 people in your constituency alone believe this...", put together a petition or asked their members to write letters themselves. The first two would have meant the MP has one letter to answer (and answer the letter he must, if only to ensure he doesn't develop a reputation of ignoring his constituents altogether). The last option would - with the possible exception of really controversial issues - almost never have resulted in a deluge of correspondence because while lots of people may feel strongly enough about something to sign a petition, relatively few are likely to feel strongly enough to write a letter, put a stamp on it and post it.

Today. however, anyone can throw together a website with an email form that sends directly to a particular email address, and the amount of effort involved for the end user (particularly if most of the email is pre-written as a template) is little more than signing the petition they might have done in the past. The end result is that it's quite easy to find an MP is deluged with emails from individual constituents all basically saying the same thing - ultimately, the MP may be faced with a stark choice:

• Ignore such emails. Not good - next thing you know there's a campaign of 500 people saying how Fred Bloggs MP didn't even have the good manners to acknowledge them.
• Reply to each email with a form letter. Not much better - form letters tend to stick out a mile and the MP knows it.
• Reply to each email individually. Except now your MP needs a 28 hour day to get everything done in.
• Have an assistant draft the replies and just sign them. Or, if feeling really smart, obtain the use of an autopen machine. This is the closest thing anyone's likely to find to a real answer, and I imagine is what most MPs do. But your MP still needs to drill through the correspondence and instruct his/her assistant - well and good if the morning's email contained 10 emails needing a reply, but never going to scale if it contained 200.

Re:lemme get this straight

[Anonymous Coward]

They're also elected to represent the views of their many constituents who, on a given issue, may find that an interest group has articulated their position better than they themselves could

We used to refer to people like that as "rentacrowd".

Re:lemme get this straight

[iserlohn]

And your point is? Democracy isn't cheap. There will always be low value communications, but and most people agree that that is a valid (but maybe not the most preferable) method of voicing support or disapproval of an issue to your MP. The issue here is that the MP stopped publishing his email so his other constituents would lose email access to their MP.

The previous reply hits the nail on the head. What MPs should be doing is to find ways of managing this, either by managing email in a much better fashion, or to divert such requests to a site in which meaningful data can be gathered. He or she can even arrange a short question session to address the concerns of all these people at once so that individual responses to form letters can be avoided.

Re:lemme get this straight

[samjam]

"Today. however, anyone can throw together a website with an email form that sends directly to a particular email address"
sure, but it takes more effort than to go and buy a stamp, doesn't it.

And then you have to find voters who are bothered enough to use the said website.

If voters are using the site it's because it represents them better than the MP does.

This MP is trying to ignore voters who already have had to go to great lengths to be heard - double fail to the MP!

Re:lemme get this straight

[Hognoxious]

It's the "squeaky wheel" principle, but with an amplifier.

Hmmm, wonder if I can patent that.

Re:lemme get this straight

[Stellian]

The main point is that it's impossible for a politician to know if he's spammed by a large part of his voters as opposed to a noisy minority employing automated tools. As such, any repetitive mail will be ignored. And rightfully so, else we will quickly end up with the "Subsidized Penile Enhancement act of 2010" - it's clearly what the people want.

Re:lemme get this straight

[nospam007]

"the views of their many constituents who, on a given issue, may find that an interest group has articulated their position better than they themselves could, ..."

You mean the goat has already told them how to work the garden?

gun related - ask only NRA
farm subsidy - ask only Farmer's Association ...

It's _because_ those groups swaying/paying off your man that people want to reach their representatives to tell them they will raise hell for any next vote if he misrepresents them.

Re:lemme get this straight

[mpe]

When you send an email from one of these web sites, you're supposed to email your own MP, not one picked at random.

Or the site itself could pick the MP from the address/postcode details entered.

Therefore, the emails he is talking about are from his own constituents.

Which MPs (or their staff) should be able to trivially verify against the electoral register.
Another thing is that even with "form letters" 38 degrees encourages people to add additional comments.

Re:lemme get this straight

[Anonymous Coward]

That's two comments in a row you've begun with the words "And your point is?", followed by a reply to the point they made - suggesting: a) they made the point perfectly well; b) they made it well enough to make you respond.

Please, drop the "And your point is?" silliness. It just makes you look like a snarky twat.

Re:lemme get this straight

[DrXym]

Yes you're supposed to, doesn't mean you actually have to, or that the MP has any easy of verifying you are you say you are, or that your views are representative of constituents, or that multiple people in the constituency should be spamming the MP with substantially identical form letters as part of a campaign.

The 38 degrees site claims to have sent "tens of thousands of emails" for just one recent campaign. Which means every single MP on average received at least 15 substantially identical emails and probably more. That's just one website and just one campaign. I would not be surprised if MPs receive upwards of 30-50 such boiler plate emails every day and more again from commercial lobby groups.

It's no wonder an MP might wish to remove their address from campaign sites. Just because they are a public representative doesn't mean they should have to listen, process or respond to essentially political spam.

Re:lemme get this straight

[Aceticon]

And your point is? Email from these pressure groups are in no way invalid if they are from his constituents. Just because a Tory politician doesn't agree with the stance taken by pressure groups such as 38 degrees, doesn't give him the right to withdraw a valuable communications channel to his constituents. You can be sure that if those emails are in support of the MPs pet project, he would be openly inviting more email correspondence.

Let me put this in perspective by giving you an easier to visualize methaphor:
- Imagine that an MP sets up an open session with his constituents, maybe in a local town hall which takes 200 people.
- His intention is to get questions from members of the public and answer the as best as he can, maybe picking up some of the cases he hears about and checking int them further.
- During the whole session, there is a group of 10 people which came in together and spend the whole time shouting out loud how they want something specific done, drowning everybody else during the whole session and pretty much not letting anybody else be heard.

Those 10 people represent only 5% of everybody in that hall and (due to self-selection, since they gathered and came together on purpose) represent a much smaller proportion of the overall voters in the constituency.

This is basically what some "pressure groups" do, only they do it via e-mail. While they do deserve a voice, they do not deserve to be heard above and over other constituents.

In my example above, if the 10 people disturbing the open session were not forcefully thrown out (probably by the other constituents that also came in to voice their problems), then the MP would simply stop it after a while. If this kept happening, he would never do one of those open sessions again.

That said, in the e-mail case the MP's solution for this should not have been to remove his e-mail address from the site. Instead he should set up a blacklist of abusers of the system (preferably automatic) which would simply send those e-mails to an alternative low priority queue (such as a different e-mail address) which would only be looked at when the normal queue was empty.

If he really wanted to be fair, people would be removed from the blacklist after not abusing the system for a while.

This would neatly turn e-mail spamming into a self-defeating technique if done frequently.

Re:lemme get this straight

[Malc]

It doesn't really matter whether these groups are valid or not. Their complaint that the loss of the recent addition of email contact is ridiculous. If they care about their cause, then why does it matter that it costs money? Stationary and stamps cost very little, unless they're in the business of bulking mailing or spamming, in which it's probably better all around that they can't use email for contact.

I should point out that in Canada a stamp isn't required to contact one's MP. If it's such a big deal to this group, then perhaps they should lobby for a similar policy in the UK.

Re:lemme get this straight

[zippthorne]

Where do you live that a first class stamp is a quarter?

Or are you suggesting constituents should be sending postcards?

Re:lemme get this straight

[samjam]

Well said. And isn't the tory party also a pressure group? Aren't all political parties? Maybe he doesn't like the competition.

Re:lemme get this straight

[delinear]

If there are too many constituent correspondences for the MP to handle, then either the MP is doing something wrong (if nobody else is complaining) or he has too many constituents in his seat and it should be broken up. The way to fix that is not to make constituents jump through hoops to put them off speaking to him, which seems to be what Mr Raabs is trying to do. I wonder what he'd do if he then started receiving the same volume of correspondences in writing (considering it's a lot more effort to open all those envelopes, not to mention the cost to pen, print and post the responses), maybe insist on carrier pigeon or some other obfuscated communication method? These MPs should be welcoming new communication channels and embracing every opportunity to engage with a usually apathetic populace.

Re:lemme get this straight

[delinear]

So block those sites and send them a notice explaining that if the constituents want to email directly from their own accounts that is fine. That way you cut out spam from the sites but you don't stop people who really want to get in touch (and if the sites are responsible they will explain to users that they need to email the following address [...]). Seriously, if Parliament can't find a way to do something as common place as deal with spam, we're all in trouble.

Re:lemme get this straight

[Nursie]

In any event, writing to your MP is the most effective recourse for a UK citizen who has a problem with the political establishment and most MPs take their duty seriously.

ROFL.

The experience of most people I know who have written to their MPs (and it's quite a few now) is that they wait months for a reply, and the reply usually makes it clear that not only do they not understand the position that the petitioner was coming from, but haven't even read the letter. And this is snail mail.

Re:lemme get this straight

[SteveFoerster]

Only on Slashdot would an explanation of how snail mail works be modded informative. :-)

Re:lemme get this straight

[dangitman]

It's the "squeaky wheel" principle, but with an amplifier.

Sorry, that patent is already held by Celine Dion.

Re:lemme get this straight

[Anonymous Coward]

If everyone is sending an identical letter, then a form letter tailored to that letter shouldn't stick out. Draft a good response once and it works for everyone who clicks on the same link!

Re:lemme get this straight

[DaveGod]

doesn't give him the right to withdraw a valuable communications channel to his constituents

I think you're confused. He is not required to provide an email address, neither he nor his constituents have any rights or obligations in this respect. Any ideas about "rights" is a non-issue. Many MP's choose to use emails, there may be ample merits of doing so, but it is their choice.

Re:lemme get this straight

[Custard Horse]

Is it reasonable for each constituent to send 2 emails a day? If this occurred the MP would be swamped with emails such that none of them would be processed.

If 38 degress was given the time it demands from this MP, it would be at the expense of other constituents which wouldn't be democratic. There is a fine line between campaigning and harassment.

Re:lemme get this straight

[rufty_tufty]

- Imagine that an MP sets up an open session with his constituents, maybe in a local town hall which takes 200 people.
- His intention is to get questions from members of the public and answer the as best as he can, maybe picking up some of the cases he hears about and checking int them further.
- During the whole session, there is a group of 10 people which came in together and spend the whole time shouting out loud how they want something specific done, drowning everybody else during the whole session and pretty much not letting anybody else be heard.

I think your last point is the problem with the metaphor. I would agree that shouting out the whole time would be very wrong, but that this isn't what is happening here, what is happening here is you have a few people who feel strongly about an issue (or simply have too much free time) have organised so that as many people as possible come to this meeting and raise their views at the meeting.
The email equivalent of shouting others down would be to make sure that others couldn't be heard, so if for example they set up a script to constantly email the MP then I would agree that is very wrong, but encouraging people to contact their MP and raise the issue with him and to even go so far as to provide a method to do this is not spamming, well no more than the old technique of collecting signatures for petitions, or let's say going around door to door to people's houses indiscriminately and trying to convince them to vote for you.

Re:lemme get this straight

[ebuck]

While democracy isn't cheap, we shouldn't actually try to make it more expensive. The key point it that the MP is getting DDoS'd with form letters from pressure groups, and that denies YOUR access to him for any issue YOU might have that isn't the same issue the pressure group is currently pushing. If the MP fixes this by hiring more staff, YOU get to pay for it. So now that you're footing the bill, how much do you want your taxes raise to afford this not-so-cheap exercise in futility?

Re:lemme get this straight

[Ash Vince]

Firstly, if you want to be taken seriously you need to learn about paragraphs. Reading a big block of text hurts most peoples eyes.

Secondly, this website is not about saving the cost of a stamp. It is about making it trivially easy to send an email to your MP over an issue the website organisers think matters. If the issue is actually important to someone and their MP has a say in it, then chances are they will find a way to make their MP listen. This website is about making it so easy to contact your MP that you will contact them regardless of how important it is just because it is so easy.

This is probably why the MP cant be arsed to read these emails. Most people using this site probably have no idea who their MP is, they probably didn't even vote. The site makes it easy to lookup who your MP is by postcode and them send him an email without you actually caring enough about the issue at hand to do this if it was not so easy. There area great many things that matter to me but I am not actually bothered about many of them enough to write to my MP since I know his time is limited.

If they changed the site so it allowed you to look up you MP then forced you to type your own email I would not have such an issue with it. But this site even has a stock email for you to send so it requires almost no thought at all to send. The site also does not at any time ask you to verify you are registered to vote or even of voting age. A 14 year old child can use this to email a coherent letter to his MP that is indistinguishable from a letter of a legitimate constituent.

I also note that the site itself has a decidedly left wing bias. All the current campaigns are things I vaguely agree with, but I have a feeling this particular MP (being a Conservative) does not give two shits about. Also bear in mind that he is the MP for Esher and Walton. This is a very leafy area in Surrey. I very much doubt the average local resident who votes in this area gives a crap about the left wing issues posted on 38 Degrees.

The MP in question does have a website and a blog. Here is a link:

http://www.dominicraab.com/dom_s_blog.html

He covers why he has asked for this on his blog. If anyone actually wants to talk to him about these issues and you are a constituent, then you can always turn up at one of his surgeries and talk to him in person.

Re:lemme get this straight

[Triv]

The MP in this case was wrong to have his official e-mail address taken off the Parliamentary website. He seems to have been following advice on how to opt-out of spam: The reason I stopped formally advertising my actual email address is that the Information Commissioner's Office advised me that, if I do, I am putting it in the public domain and then cannot ask for it to be removed from mass e-distribution lists or automated systems.

...which would be fine if he was talking about his gmail account, but he's a government representative. His job, at its base level, is to listen to people. It comes with the territory. He can beg people to write letters or to call and talk to an aide or to come to campaign events instead of emailing him, but he can't, say, set up a spam filter to automatically delete emails from his constituents emanating from valid domains, even if they annoy the snot out of him. I'm not saying it's necessary for him to be on (or even understand) Twitter, but we're talking about email, here. It's a pretty basic form of interpersonal communication these days.

Sorry, sir, but if you don't want to hear from people, you're in the wrong line of work.

Re:lemme get this straight

[mdwh2]

Yes - whilst I tend to agree with the various campaigns that 38 degrees has been doing, I tend to not be happy at sites that encourage people to send copy-and-paste letters. I think it's much better for people to take the time to write it in their own words, putting forward their own arguments and concerns.

So to be fair, I think what he's objecting to is not people emailing him in general, endless copies of the same thing.

And we must remember - for every 38 degrees that might be doing something we support, there are other lobby organisations promoting all sorts of nonsense, and several bad laws have been passed because they managed to stir up a campaign, getting thousands of people to either sign a petition, click a button or whatever, without these people actually having to consider the actual issues deeply. So in general, I think encouraging people to write in their own words is a good thing.

I also have some sympathy as this is an individual MP. Had the last Labour Government complained about this, I'd have none - Labour were keen to cite bulk copy/paste or petition responses as "evidence the public support this" when it agreed with whatever new law they were passing; but dismissed this as "an organised campaign" when the campaign disagreed (e.g., it did this with the ID cards consultation, ignoring thousands of responses that opposed the plans).

Just one comment though:

If 38 degress was given the time it demands from this MP

38 degrees isn't demanding any time. The time is demanded by constituents of that MP, who have as much right to email him as any other - even if we did rather they write in their own words.

Re:lemme get this straight

[mdwh2]

But I would say things are better now. When you consider:

In the past, they may have got together and drafted a letter saying "500 people in your constituency alone believe this...", put together a petition or asked their members to write letters themselves.

The problem with the first two is that things like group letters and petitions are very poor indicators of support. How do we know that 500 people really believe this? E.g., it's not uncommon for an organisation to cite the number of its members as support, but we have no idea what they all individually think. How was the petition worded? Petitions are often biasedly worded, and only present one side of the argument. They also don't encourage people to actually think about the issues. And we have no idea how strongly they really care about the issue - they could just be some random person they found to say, e.g., they don't like gay marriage, but this doesn't necessarily mean they really have much of a problem with it being allowed.

I dislike copy/paste emails to some extent to, but it's still a step up. And if people can easily write in their own views, then that's good.

Reply to each email with a form letter. Not much better - form letters tend to stick out a mile and the MP knows it.

I don't see a huge problem - the problem is when form letters don't even begin to address points that anyone has made. How is this worse than only sending one reply for those 500 constituents? He doesn't have to answer every single point that each person made - he just has to outline what his or his party's position on the matter is, and if they are going to do anything or not.

And you're also missing the bigger point. When thousands of people wrote in about the Digital Economy Bill when it was being "debated", they were more concerned with the Government giving it the proper debate time it deserved rather than rushing it through. I doubt people were that bothered as to whether they got a form reply from their MP, or if it was individually written to them in reply.

Re:lemme get this straight

[Leynos]

As the other response to my comment also noted, you are generally required to include a postcode with any email sent to an MP through these sites, which can easily be checked.

Re:lemme get this straight

[Kijori]

This seems to me like an implementation of the micropayment method to control spam. If you want to pressure this MP you now have to spend the extra couple of minutes that it takes to print your letter and put it in an envelope, and then pay 41p for a stamp. The total marginal cost of sending the letter is a couple of pounds, at most. Is it really a sensible use of an MP's time to deal with issues that people don't consider to be worth £2?

Re:lemme get this straight

[RogueyWon]

Then you have a bad MP. These do exist. Not every MP takes an equal interest in constituency work. By and large, you are more likely (though not certain) to get a bad MP under the following circumstances:

- The MP has the kind of majority that would never in a billion years be overturned and they have the local party in their pocket, so there's no chance of de-selection.

- The MP is a Government Minister (in which case he or she will be working the kind of hours that make the average EA employee in crunch-time mode look like a slacker and won't be so hot on constituency correspondence).

- The MP is a single-issue "maverick" (perhaps from outside the big-three established parties).

However, my experience over the years is that most MPs genuinely try to engage with concerned constituents. If an MP acquires a reputation for being lazy, it can and will be exploited by their opponents at the next election.

Re:lemme get this straight

[petermgreen]

They can check it's a valid postcode but I don't see any real way they can check the submitter actually lives there.

Re:lemme get this straight

[VJ42]

Yes - whilst I tend to agree with the various campaigns that 38 degrees has been doing, I tend to not be happy at sites that encourage people to send copy-and-paste letters.

I understand where you're coming from, but once he's recognised it as as a cut and paste email, he should be just reply with a cut and paste answer; not being stupid enough to try and hide his email address from his constituents.

Re:lemme get this straight

[Kijori]

"Today. however, anyone can throw together a website with an email form that sends directly to a particular email address"
sure, but it takes more effort than to go and buy a stamp, doesn't it.

And then you have to find voters who are bothered enough to use the said website.

If voters are using the site it's because it represents them better than the MP does.

This MP is trying to ignore voters who already have had to go to great lengths to be heard - double fail to the MP!

I'm not sure that's true. If you make the barrier to participation low enough and the consequences sufficiently remote then people will happily support almost anything, despite having no knowledge or real interest - look at some of the petitions on Facebook for example, or the official petitions on http://petitions.number10.gov.uk/ the petitions about the Red Arrows and Student Loans, for example, have been endorsed by hundreds of thousands of people despite the fact that they are based on misunderstandings and incorrect information. The people who signed those petitions were not interested enough to actually do any reading about the issue at stake, to research it or form their own opinion; they simply clicked, because it didn't cost them anything to do so.

The petitions website is a harmless example of what I would call "pointless participation" - participation that is meaningless because it doesn't reflect any actual interest or desire on the part of the voter. Sites that send emails are very different; the user types in his or her name, perhaps a brief message, and then the site sends it to the MP. Just like the petitions, many of these sites are trumpeting a cause that exists only in the mind of the creator, or that is of no real consequence to the vast majority of people; and yet people fill in their name and click send because it costs them nothing to do it. The MP, as a result, is inundated with messages that do not necessarily reflect any real commitment or interest; the number of emails is out of proportion to any real support that there might be, and the MP ends up missing real messages that reflect real interests.

The MP's action is, I think, overly extreme - a modified spam filter would probably allow him to whittle the tide of emails down to a manageable "petition" format. But I'm not sure that I disagree with his thinking. Writing a letter costs time and money - not very much of either, but a little bit: 15 minutes of your time and a total of about 50p for materials and a stamp. Are there really issues that are important enough that they should be the focus of our MPs' attention, but not worth a couple of pounds?

Re:lemme get this straight

[mister_dave]

If you read his side of the story, the most recent update says:

I have adopted the best [suggestion] - an E-contact form that maximises my accessibility to constituents, but does not advertise my email address to lobbyists.

I would prefer to publish my email address, as I did until recently. So, I have also written to the Information Commissioner seeking clarification of the right to have an email address removed from the automated devices and distribution lists that lobby groups deploy to send clone emails.

Re:lemme get this straight

[jimicus]

And you're also missing the bigger point. When thousands of people wrote in about the Digital Economy Bill when it was being "debated", they were more concerned with the Government giving it the proper debate time it deserved rather than rushing it through. I doubt people were that bothered as to whether they got a form reply from their MP, or if it was individually written to them in reply.

Actually, I had a huge problem with lots of legislation Labour pushed through - but really my problem is with the system. Labour had such a stranglehold on their MPs that it was unusual for many to rebel.

Their majority was big enough that it was a rare piece of law that Labour supported didn't make it through with little in the way of serious compromise - even when (as in the case of the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act) a senior MP announced late in the proceedings that he didn't like the wording.

Re:lemme get this straight

[apoc.famine]

The solution to this is to write a quick script (come on, SOMEONE in IT has to be able to whip up something in VB) to just add a "+1" to an existing stock email and bump it to the top of the inbox. You don't need to see all 200 form emails - just one showing that 200 people from this group all sent it. Hell, even a god damned folder and a filter rule would suffice.

They are so technically illiterate they can't handle some sort of automated email sorting? God...I hate politicians...

Re:lemme get this straight

[LordLimecat]

You then have to get an envelope,

Im wondering if at some point during writing your post it started to occur to you how weak your argument was. Get an envelope? Oh the horror. Parent's point stands, if you cant do this it must not be important.

Re:lemme get this straight

[samjam]

I understand what you are saying and this may often be true.

The issues available on 38 degrees are not those of 38 degrees but submitted the public, then selected by the public from those submissions to become promoted issues by 38 degrees.

So while what you say may generally be true, I think he chose the most transparent and democratic group to pick on; one that was formed as a consequence of a poorly consulting democracy and this is turning out to be unfortunate for the MP.

Re:lemme get this straight

[tophermeyer]

once he's recognised it as as a cut and paste email, he should be just reply with a cut and paste answer;

I think that's a fantastic idea. It is unfortunate that the people who receive that form letter would then use it as proof that Raab is ignoring his constituents, but in my opinion it seems absolutely fair.

Also, get a simple spam filter. If I'm getting 2-3 e-mails a day from the same source saying the same thing, I'm just going to filter it right into the trash.

Re:lemme get this straight

[Culture20]

So maybe he should hire a small staff, direct the official email to a ticket tracking system, have one staff member divvy up the tickets amongst the others (or forward pertinent emails to the MP), and make the tracking system send auto replies. RT (Request Tracker) can do all that (except the staff) for just the cost of an old server/workstation and and a DNS entry (probably free for a UK govt site).

Re:lemme get this straight

[eyrieowl]

There's doubtless a lot of nuance to the subject. In my case: I have some issues I care about...say, issues related to bicycle riders (traffic laws pertaining to; paths for use by; etc). It's something I care about...maybe not passionately, but I do want to see the "right" things done. I also have a job. And a family. And I can't follow every procedural vote and read every set of laws under consideration to see how they might impact that issue (leaving aside the many other issues I also care about). Given the penchant politicians have for burying unrelated items in large bills that are sure to pass, I want an easy way to know when something impacting an issue I care about is being considered by my representatives. I look to special interest groups to help keep me abreast of those developments. They haven't given me my opinion...I've chosen them because they have positions somewhat aligned with mine. If they make it easier for me to register my disapproval of some piece of legislation to my representative(s), so much the better.

Re:lemme get this straight

[nedlohs]

Yes I'm sure people just hate it when they get a form letter reply to their form letter email.

And it doesn't take 28 hours to reply to 10 emails.

Re:lemme get this straight

[nedlohs]

Yes two emails a day is exactly like a group of people shouting down a meeting.

Re:lemme get this straight

[VJ42]

In any event, writing to your MP is the most effective recourse for a UK citizen who has a problem with the political establishment and most MPs take their duty seriously.

ROFL.

The experience of most people I know who have written to their MPs (and it's quite a few now) is that they wait months for a reply, and the reply usually makes it clear that not only do they not understand the position that the petitioner was coming from, but haven't even read the letter. And this is snail mail.

You've had bad experiences - I've usually got replies from both my previous and current MPs (different parties) sometimes within hours; they've not always agreed with me, but they've always replied - the benefit of living in a marginal seat, perhaps.

Re:lemme get this straight

[Anonymous Coward]

A communication where the constituent in question has clicked a link on a campaign website, which has caused an automated form letter to be sent to his MP, is almost completely worthless. Yes, it indicates that the constituent supports, at least in some vague sense, the stance taken by the campaign organization. Were I the MP, I would just count and discard such emails. They don't rate a personal response, but if the campaign was over a specific issue rather than a daily bombardment of "we don't like your opinions", I might write a public response and publish it on my website.

Re:lemme get this straight

[david_thornley]

Reply to each email with a form letter. Not much better - form letters tend to stick out a mile and the MP knows it.

You mean that, in the UK, people have some expectation of non-form letters from their representatives? As a US citizen, every letter or electronic communication I've sent to Congress has been answered by what looked an awful like like a form letter, often thanking me for supporting something I'm against.

Re:lemme get this straight

[Nursie]

Sadly it's not just my MP, but it's the experience of other folks living in different areas too.

I'm not saying they're all like that, but a myself and several friends have had any faith they had left in British democracy shaken from them by this sort of behaviour.

Re:lemme get this straight

[tsm_sf]

Where do you live that a first class stamp is a quarter?

1996. The weather's nice and the politics less rabid.

Re:lemme get this straight

[cyber-dragon.net]

There is a site I use that does similar things, and many of the campaigns have to be very fast as congress will propose and vote on a bill in the same day. If we cannot use email how will we tell our representatives how we feel about it? By the time a letter reaches them it's way too late.

If the USPS will deliver from California to Washington on the same day... or if Congress wants to self-limit enough citizens have time to figure out what they are up to, I'd be happy to send a physical letter.

Re:lemme get this straight

[tsm_sf]

At best, at best, your email will end up as a check in either the "liberal loon" or "bat-shit crazy conservative" column. Your representative cares about your personal opinion, if at all, in direct proportion to the effort required to communicate it.

Re:lemme get this straight

[jimicus]

I've received things that I was fairly sure were form letters before - generally when contacting my MP about a contentious issue which probably has lots of people writing more-or-less the same letter.

But I've also received very helpful letters that most definitely weren't form, largely because my MP took the trouble to ask someone else a question on my behalf - she actually asked me how I'd like the question worded. So yes, I definitely have some expectation of non-form letters.

I've certainly never received a letter thanking me for supporting an issue I wrote to express my opposition to.

Re:lemme get this straight

[sjames]

How important can his constituents be to him is an MP can't be bothered with 2 whole emails a day?

Will he be happier if the same website prints them out when the user clicks send and then they mail the lot to him weekly? That way he can proudly proclaim that he's doing his part to waste resources in a country that's overburdened with trees HEY! wait a minute...

Re:lemme get this straight

[Nick Ives]

They operate on the principle of "if we say something often and loud enough, then MPs will conclude we are important or in the majority".

Yea, we can't have the proles getting uppity eh? Heaven forbid that those "self-righteous" pressure groups might actually be representing a majority viewpoint!

Most people don't have time to sit down and engage with the political process. We've got jobs that take up most of our time and scant recreational time. When a small group of people take the time to setup a pressure group over something they care about, automatic MP contact forms are a good campaigning tool.

As most of the emails generated will be identical, you just have to send them all the same response. Filter the identical ones upon receipt and keep a count of how many you're getting. Pass on any personal additions to the campaign email to the MP to respond to.

I've heard MPs whine about this issue before and, the way they talk, you'd think nobody else works in a business where you spend loads of time answering the same boring questions over and over again. It's not that hard a situation to manage.

Re:lemme get this straight

[stiggle]

The emails are from his constituents - channelled through the pressure group.
If someone in Esher does it - they get Dominic Raab, if someone in Kendal does it then they get Tim Farron.

Its like collecting signatures - all those people have signed the same letter, just in this case the people send the letters individually to their own MP rather than turning up at Westminster with a box containing all the signatures.

Re:lemme get this straight

[Leynos]

And why is someone going to go to the effort of finding a postcode in that MP's constituency when they could just put in their own postcode and contact their own MP?

He actually reads those mails?

[wvmarle]

I always had the idea that politicians do not read the mails that are sent to them - the higher up the chain the less likely. I would expect them to have a bunch of aides who actually go through those mails, categorise them, and regularly hand summaries to the politician, or forward really important ones directly to his actual private e-mail.

A national politician reading all mails sent by constituents by himself is doing something wrong imho. He has better things to do than spending all day reading mails, as I expect that he will get lots of mails.

Re:He actually reads those mails?

[Anonymous Coward]

A national politician reading all mails sent by constituents by himself is doing something wrong imho. He has better things to do than spending all day reading mails...

Oh, really? Name two.

Re:He actually reads those mails?

[SwedishPenguin]

It depends on the politician and/or the body I suppose. As far as I can tell, our parliamentarians in Sweden don't have such aides. Not that they will necessarily respond to your emaisl, but they will answer the phone if you call them... (But then we're only 9 million people, and very few would ever bother sending an email, much less call an MP, I am however one of those few)

Re:He actually reads those mails?

[bigstrat2003]

I don't know. While it may be a hell of a lot of work, I think they also owe it to the people to be contactable, so the people can express their wishes. The only person I would really exempt is someone like the president of a country, where they represent every single person in the country (which can be an impossibly large number). However, pretty much anyone else should be making the effort, as their number of constituents will be more manageable.

Re:He actually reads those mails?

[andr00oo]

I know for a fact that neither Senator Conroy nor anyone in his office ever read any of my emails.

I know this because they replied to each one (eventually) with some form letter that addressed none of the issues I'd raised and was often very wide of the mark. In fact that's pretty standard for everything I sent the Rudd/Gillard government.

Non-garbage In -> Garbage Out.

Re:He actually reads those mails?

[Anonymous Coward]

Non-garbage In -> Garbage Out.

Soo ... it's like tech support of all major internet-based corporations?

Re:He actually reads those mails?

[jimicus]

The UK's political system is rather different from the US, however. We directly elect our representative (who becomes a Member of Parliament, or MP) by a simple majority - whoever has the most votes in an area is the MP for that area. (This can actually mean that a fairly unpopular person becomes MP, if the votes are split 30:28:28:14, the candidate with 30% of the vote becomes MP even though 70% of the people in the area didn't want him. We don't have a two-party system, so this can easily happen.)

The party with 50% or more of the elected MPs forms the government - the party leader becomes Prime Minister and s/he hands out positions within government to MPs. The most senior MPs form the cabinet - a sort of steering committee, if you like, given that it'd be pretty hard to have an intelligent group meeting of the 300 or so MPs a ruling party would have. This system ensures that the party in power can generally get legislation passed relatively easily - few MPs make a habit of voting against the party line, it's an extremely good way to find yourself kicked out of the party.

What's happened recently (though it's not directly related to this discussion) is that no single party has 50% of the elected MPs. So no single party commands a majority in Parliament. What happens then is that two parties whose votes together add up to more than 50% agree to form a coalition - a government comprised of MPs from two parties.

Re:He actually reads those mails?

[Mashiki]

Dunno in my neck of the woods my MP reads all of his mail, his email is handled by his secretary. He's been doing a pretty good job for the last 8 years we've had him(considering he was a very well liked police chief), who got what he stated, done.

Re:He actually reads those mails?

[deniable]

It sounds like his department. I can't remember how many of his media releases got tagged by SpamAssassin, but they looked like they were using spammers to send the things. The man's a muppet and his department / staff look the same. Just be glad you got a form letter without the mail-merge fields. Dear $WHINGER...

Re:He actually reads those mails?

[VJ42]

I always had the idea that politicians do not read the mails that are sent to them - the higher up the chain the less likely. I would expect them to have a bunch of aides who actually go through those mails, categorise them, and regularly hand summaries to the politician, or forward really important ones directly to his actual private e-mail.

A national politician reading all mails sent by constituents by himself is doing something wrong imho. He has better things to do than spending all day reading mails, as I expect that he will get lots of mails.

I know mine reads hers as she replied from her personal email account indicating she's set up some forwarding rules system so she doesn't have to check multiple email accounts every day.

Re:He actually reads those mails?

[Anonymous Coward]

1) Debate.
2) Legislature.

Re:He actually reads those mails?

[jez9999]

We don't have a two-party system, so this can easily happen

Technically, the US doesn't either... though it's easy to forget. ;-)

Re:He actually reads those mails?

[CrimsonAvenger]

We directly elect our representative (who becomes a Member of Parliament, or MP) by a simple majority - whoever has the most votes in an area is the MP for that area. (This can actually mean that a fairly unpopular person becomes MP, if the votes are split 30:28:28:14, the candidate with 30% of the vote becomes MP even though 70% of the people in the area didn't want him. We don't have a two-party system, so this can easily happen.)

In case you're not aware, the "two party system" doesn't actually guarantee that the winner of an election gets greater than 50% of the vote. Especially since "two party" really means "two major parties". Most Congressional elections have more than two candidates, and the winner frequently has less than 50% of the popular vote.

Re:He actually reads those mails?

[DrugCheese]

What else should politicians spend their time on if not listening to their constituents? They only have one job - speak on behalf of the constituents, and they can't do that properly without listening to them.

Re:He actually reads those mails?

[Just Some Guy]

I wrote an email regarding health care reform to my (US) senators a while ago. One of them called me personally within a week to discuss the matter. I wasn't home at the time but he left a long message on my answering machine: "Hi. This is Senator Mike Johanns calling for Kirk. I got your email and would like to talk to you about [...]" My other senator replied with a form letter a month later: "I received your message and am committed to [exact opposite of my position] and appreciate your support. Thank you for writing!"

I'll never forget the first senator who took the time to personally address my letter. At that point, I'd completely respect him even if he disagreed with my position because he cared enough to actually listen and talk to his constituents. I don't expect my representatives to always say and do exactly what I'd like them to, but I like when they seem interested in finding out what that would be.

Re:He actually reads those mails?

[digitrev]

For the record, the term you're looking for is a plurality of votes. Simply more than anyone else.

Re:He actually reads those mails?

[S.O.B.]

1) Pander to corporate donors at the expense of his/her constituents.
2) Visit prostitutes. I guess a prostitute in the constituency would count as meeting with a constituent.

two e-mails a day?!

[chichilalescu]

even "less than 2 a day on average", as they said... it's ridiculous. If I received that amount of e-mails from someone, it would mean I am spending at least half a day (each day) working on something that is a collaboration or something.

That would still irritate me

[DNS-and-BIND]

If I got two unsolicited emails a day from the same sender, day after day, it would really get on my nerves. Posts above say "boo hoo he gets two emails a day" when in fact it is from a single site. No sympathy for his "God damn ordinary people" attitude but still, how many times have you been unable to stop an email sender who doesn't care about your opinion? Spam filter would be the solution that seems to be lacking, but then the negative story would be "politician bins a pressure group's informative daily emails".

Re:That would still irritate me

[c0lo]

If I got two unsolicited emails a day from the same sender, day after day, it would really get on my nerves.

Maybe this is why you aren't getting elected? If you are not an MP, your "pissed-off of same person writing you twice a day" reaction is not relevant for the issue at hand, as legitimate as it is for the case of a private person and as much as I empathise with you (I really do, but this is also irrelevant)

For an MP (public person), the situation cannot be the same: I'm quite afraid that supporting the nuisance of receiving mails from a pressure group really does come with the position of MP. After all, a MP is supposed to represent the interest of the people that elected him or his party, I consider deliberately ignoring the email as a mission failure.

Re:That would still irritate me

[Leynos]

The thing is, it's not the same person. It's his constituents, using a tool to enable them to contact him about issues they feel are pressing. The fact that these people are using the same tool to communicate is irrelevant.

Re:That would still irritate me

[Joce640k]

I think they have some sort of requirement to read them, not bin them, maybe even to reply as well. I wrote a couple of letters to my MP when I lived there (by post - this was the 1980s). Both times I got a canned response letter.

email address

[Phurge]

raabd@parliament.uk dominic.raab.mp@parliament.uk

Re:email address

[Phurge]

and dom.raab@yahoo.co.uk

Junk Mail

[afabbro]

The group provides a service by which people can automatically email their MP on certain issues

A friend who worked in a U.S. congressman's office said that these sorts of "constituent contacts" are a complete waste of time. Ditto for "send this postcard to your lawmaker", form letters, online petitions (of the "we have a voice!" type, not the legal process type), etc. Any kind of preprinted form contact (whether electronic or written) is generally ignored because the lobbying groups who generate them can do so at will. e.g., Right to Life or NARAL can at any time run a campaign and get thousands of postcards or form emails sent to the congressman. The lower the barrier to send (with email form letters being the lowest), the more likely to end up being completely ignored. These types of contacts are also very easy to fake.

On the other hand, a personally written letter or phone call is given whatever miniscule attention the congressman's office usually gives to constituent contacts...i.e., very little unless you are a major contributor, but at least it's not automatically routed to trash.

Re:Junk Mail

[91degrees]

i.e., very little unless you are a major contributor,

Very little is not zero though. If 1000 people write to an MP/congressman about beekeepers subsidies or whatever, then generally this will be brought to his attention.

Re:Junk Mail

[Anonymous Coward]

Once again, as the parent said - if he receives 1000 form letters from a campaign, they would get routed to the trash, and may have even less impact than one sincere letter. And if there is one sincere letter plus a campaign of 1000 form letters, then that one letter might get thrown out with the rest of the spam.

Re:Junk Mail

[jimicus]

On the other hand, a personally written letter or phone call is given whatever miniscule attention the congressman's office usually gives to constituent contacts...i.e., very little unless you are a major contributor, but at least it's not automatically routed to trash.

I have completely the opposite experience.

The UK system doesn't rely on individual contributions anything like as heavily as the US system. (Well, actually it does rely on them to a certain extent but it's nothing like as obvious - frankly, from what I've heard I'd describe the US system as formalised corruption) - if you write to your MP with a tangible issue that's likely to be impacting a number of people in their constituency and not too controversial, as I indeed have, you may very well get serious attention. OK, the serious attention may be little more than a letter written by an assistant and sent to somebody important but that somebody important is far more likely to take a letter from Fred Bloggs MP seriously than they are to take a letter from you or me.

Re:Junk Mail

[SheeEttin]

I don't remember where I heard it, but I heard that at least one Congressman's office, any handwritten letters go directly to the Congressman's desk (presumably after being screened for anthrax, etc., of course). Form-filled/pre-printed letter probably were fast-tracked for the trash.

Re:Junk Mail

[VJ42]

On the other hand, a personally written letter or phone call is given whatever miniscule attention the congressman's office usually gives to constituent contacts...i.e., very little unless you are a major contributor, but at least it's not automatically routed to trash.

My MP has replied every time I've emailed her, a couple of times within hours - then again, I put some thought into my emails to her and contact her about specific issues. Having said that, I don't see the problem with form emails - just send form replies.

Re:Junk Mail

[ledow]

Maybe it's just me but I've always treated any petition in exactly the same way:

- Classmates "petitioning" to be allowed not to wear uniforms.
- Facebook "petitions" to honour some mass murderer who went on a rampage with a gun then shot himself (Incidentally: Ah, diddums...)
- "Petitions" to stop Hotmail charging for their service.
- People who stop me in the street and expect me to be as riled about their cause as they are.
- Petitions to the No10 website, or direct to MP's.

They are all a 100% waste of time. Most of the things they demand are never going to happen, or weren't going to happen as they stated anyway. Most of the times their facts are completely wrong, their opinions far too blinkered (very self-involved, most petitions) and their solutions pathetic. The petitions website for 10 Downing Street is hilarious... basically everyone asking them to dissolve government, or give them a million pounds, or implement a compulsory Naked Thursday, and they get hundreds of thousands of names - your anti-abortion, or whatever, petition with a couple of hundred names at the bottom is much more deserving of attention than sitting in that list, or in some MP's office.

To paraphrase Terry Pratchett - anything that someone has had time to write down and send to you isn't important - it's when you have people standing in front of you, banging your desk with their fist and shouting that you REALLY have to do something. I don't agree with the specifics of that, but the mood is about right. No amount of silly anonymous memos will motivate me to do something but if someone comes and takes the time to ask, describe their problem and understand the consequences, then they get ALL my attention immediately.

I'm afraid that even hearing the word "petition" puts me in mind of schoolkids "petitioning" to scrap homework, or irate working-class mothers yelling on street corners about "having a paedo that lives down the road" while holding a clipboard. I *automatically* know that I don't give a shit about it. Electronic petitions - hell, I now give even less of a shit because any idiot can click a million times on "Stop them charging for Facebook!!!!" buttons. MP's probably do have a duty to listen to all this gumpfh - and, seriously, get yourself a spam filter and a secretary - but what good do you think it will actually DO?

ID cards, ContactPoint, Heathrow's extra runway, etc. were not affected by petitions for YEARS. What stopped them is voter apathy (and thus people voting with their feet), focus on public spending wastage (not done by petitions to stop paying MP's), and people actually providing valid reasons why not (because the schemes are useless and a waste of time, for instance). In some cases even ignoring the entire scheme works more wonders than any amount of petitions (ID cards - how many people actually signed up to the "trial"? After that, it's almost impossible to actually implement the plans with a straight face).

The population aren't, on the whole, as stupid as some people would think. Nobody wanted ID cards, nobody wanted ContactPoint, there has NOT been a big fuss over scrapping them. Showing contempt for a scheme and ignoring it generates more results than silly petitions. Poll tax in the UK died because something like 30% of people refused to pay it even when it was a legal requirement and enforced heavily. Even protests carry infinitely more weight than a petition but they are just as useless - anyone who's used Trafalgar Square for the past however-many Wednesdays knows the hassle caused and the absolutely mute response from the government because of the pettiness of the issue (how many people that don't use Trafalgar Square actually knew what that was about?). The anti-war protests outside Parliament got moved on after a long time because, basically, everyone was bored of seeing them there. They achieved precisely zip. Rioting etc. solves even less problems - in fact, it just makes the cause that the rioters are fighting for seem ruthless, unca

Dude...

[kikito]

Get another email adress. They are free.

TFB

[Chas]

This is a serious "my pussy hurts" moment.

He's a public official being contacted BY MEMBERS OF HIS CONSTITUENCY through an e-mail account that's being subsidized by taxpayers SPECIFICALLY for the purpose of making him accessible to his constituency.

Were this his PRIVATE e-mail address, he'd have a legitimate bitch. But this isn't the case.

So, not to put too fine a point on it, but fuck him and the horse he rode in on.

Re:TFB

[AK Marc]

He has a PUBLIC office provided by the PUBLIC PEOPLE for use to conduct BUSINESS with regards to his CONSTITUENCY. So, would you think it appropriate if two people showed up to his office every day and just sat there requesting time to talk about something/anything?

I foresee a stark future for the MP

[gmhowell]

I foresee a stark future for the MP. One where his mailbox is filled to overflowing daily with links to wikipedia's page on the Streisand Effect.

Re:I foresee a stark future for the MP

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, there are lots of childish assholes around.

Can't ignore it

[Anonymous Coward]

He has an obligation to read his e-mail, nuisance mails or not. What he needs is a techie to write a filter that adds up repeat e-mails and only sends him one that aggregates all those received in a day/week/year, etc. because it's the number of e-mails that counts. It's like petitioning, but 38 degrees aren't collecting the signatories but just passing them on straight away to the MP, well that is annoying for the MP, it's not his job. Besides, there's not much point in the 38 degrees site, if you want to lobby government, they have their own site for doing it http://petitions.number10.gov.uk/

Re:Can't ignore it

[CyberDragon777]

Dear [MP name here]

I am [Sender name here] from [Sender city here] and I am writing to you because of:

[10000 characters of stuff, exactly the same that he gets several times every day]

Thank you!
[Sender name here]

Yeah, I'm sure this gets annoying after a while.

Shell out for a stamp?

[MacTO]

I cannot speak for the UK, but you don't need to add postage to letters addressed to your MPs in Canada. Even if such a rule does not exist in the UK, I would imagine that the postal service would have an unwritten commitment to deliver mail addressed to MPs regardless of affixed postage.

So if you can't spend the pennies on a sheet of paper and envelope, and can't invest the five minutes to walk to a postal box, I really must ask if that essential comment to your MP is really essential or just another example of UBE.

Re:Shell out for a stamp?

[mister_dave]

In the UK, if you send an unstamped letter to someone, the recipient has to pay the postage.

One of my MEPs shot himself in the foot a couple of years ago, he sent out unstamped letters to his electors after the election, and they had to pay the postage (if they wanted the letter), only to discover it was junk mail! So we all got a follow up apology letter, with some unused stamps as compensation. :-)

Re:Shell out for a stamp?

[Anonymous Coward]

They will deliver it, they'll just try to fine the recipient (£1 + actual postage cost I think?) - if this is an MP, they probably won't pay, and the letter will just get pulped.

Re:Shell out for a stamp?

[TheRaven64]

I propose that everyone prints out a copy of the Wikipedia Streisand effect article, and posts it to him with no stamp attached.

Re:Shell out for a stamp?

[delinear]

That ignores all of the other benefits of email. It's greener than shipping paper around the country, it's convenient for people who work, it's inclusive for the elderly or less abled who actually might have physical difficulty getting to the post box. You can generally get an instant response to let you know your message got through, you might even get a real response in less than a day as opposed to several days for snail mail. It's easier to save and organise your correspondance, and you don't have to be physically at home to read any replies (useful if you've ever had to spend weeks away from home for work purposes, etc). Not to mention you put the minor annoying barrier of printing and posting your letter in place (and in doing so throw out all the previously discussed benefits), there's still no guarantee that the letter is worthwhile - the guy's hoping to decrease the quantity of the communication, he doesn't care about improving the quality, you may just as well say if you really cared about your message you'd take the time to learn caligraphy, or to carve it on rock, or to train a carrier pigeon.

Re:Shell out for a stamp?

[mister_dave]

Please don't! The taxpayers would have to pay that bill.

Dominic Raab / Information

[Anonymous Coward]

For a new MP in this session (he was elected as MP for Esher and Walton in the 2010 election) you'd think he would have had better PR, especially with a background as a Lawyer and a few years in the Foreign office.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dominic_Raab

Voting record is already a bit shoddy, absent from 10 of the 49 possible votes so far this year, and seems to be a backbencher, so its not like he's got anything else to do except deal with his expenses, vote when required (he's a True Blue Tory Boy - 100% loyal to party lines when he does vote) and deal with his constiuency voter's issues.

http://www.publicwhip.org.uk/mp.php?mpn=Dominic_Raab&mpc=Esher_and_Walton&house=commons&display=everyvote#divisions

Paging

[Anonymous Coward]

Paging Dr Streisand...

Re:Paging

[Stumbles]

Your paging the wrong doctor. That should be Dr. Howard, Dr. Fine and Dr. Howard.

Completely agree

[Kupfernigk]

Any MP will tell you one well written letter in an envelope with a stamp is worth uncounted numbers of emails, because someone has bothered to communicate, and where one person takes action, many others think the same but cannot be bothered. In a democracy, we should express our views by voting, or demonstrating, not by spamming. Sites like 38degrees could easily be more responsible, but they suffer from a degree of self-righteousness that (to them) justifies encouraging annoying behaviour.

Where I live, we have a very effective resident's pressure group. We have one person who directly contacts councillors, one person who is a planning specialist, and access to legal and scientific information. The rest of us supply funds and do the office jobs. We also have a fund big enough to apply for legal injunctions. This is extremely effective; local Government gets one targeted message, and they know that it has considerable real support.

Re:Completely agree

[PeterBrett]

Any MP will tell you one well written letter in an envelope with a stamp is worth uncounted numbers of emails, because someone has bothered to communicate, and where one person takes action, many others think the same but cannot be bothered.

Sorry, but some of us painstakingly write carefully-thought-out e-mails to our MPs. There's a difference between a cut-and-paste job and an e-mail that's had effort put into it. Indiscriminately stopping constituents from e-mailing you is ridiculous in the 21st century.

Re:Completely agree

[VJ42]

Any MP will tell you one well written letter in an envelope with a stamp is worth uncounted numbers of emails, because someone has bothered to communicate, and where one person takes action, many others think the same but cannot be bothered.

Really? My MP often replies to my emails (and I think about what I write) within hours.
I first emailed her (and the other candidates) during the election campaign to find out their views on issues important to me - my previous MP used to even reply to my tweets! Most MPs are getting as used to new technology as the rest of the public, they know that 99% of people don't use snail mail anymore. Just because it's email doesn't mean it's thoughtless or meaningless.
Of course, you're right that they used to think that way, but for the wrong reasons - Write to them appends a hash of your email address and words to the effect of "signed in accordance with digital communications act 19xx" because MPs didn't trust 'letters' without a signature. It's because they didn't understand the technology, not because they can be spammed, after all it's not hard to post a letter.

Re:Completely agree

[rapiddescent]

I am a community councillor in my town in Scotland (an unpaid elected voluntary position). I basically listen to the public of my town and then talk directly to the politicians. It works well; myself and my community councillor colleagues have a good working relationship with individuals in local government and the scottish government and we have solved a lot of issues.

I'd amend the GPP's post to say:
1. personal, cordial contact works best - usually through an elected rep, e.g. community councillor
2. a handwritten letter - (with evidence or citations attached)
3. newspaper story
4. through a "recognised" pressure group, e.g. Citizens Advice, RSPCA etc
...

34 written on the side of a cow
...

568. email campaign

Re:Completely agree

[delinear]

I totally agree - considering we're all being told to be more green and that MPs are trying to push out widespread broadband it's totally counter-intuitive if they're then going to tell us not to send emails. I'd be surprised if the MP doesn't have a civil servant filtering out the dross anyway, if his workload is still too high maybe he chose the wrong vocation, most MPs would be happy to have constituents that are so engaged in the political process.

Re:Completely agree

[rufty_tufty]

Hang on so email is worse than a letter because it means you have put in less work.
Interesting; but you try going around to your MPs house and giving him your opinions in person with all the extra effort that requires and suddenly they're talking about restraining orders and violation of privacy.
There's no pleasing some people ;-)

In all seriousness, it is the MP's job to represent the views of their constituents. I would have thought any MP who was interested in this job as it is rather than a meal ticket or a career path would have welcomed something that made his job more effective.
This is assuming of course the website is playing fair and effectively providing a direct petition. It does take more effort to send an email than it does to sign a petition so I would have thought that that should be more effective/representative than a similarly sized pressure group that you describe because everyone has to take an active role in the email rather than simply be a counted member of a group.

Re:Completely agree

[teh kurisu]

...

34 written on the side of a cow

...

You need to expand your argument. This is either comically surreal or perfectly sensible depending on what part of Scotland you're from.

Re:Completely agree

[gfreeman]

http://www.snopes.com/business/bank/cowcheck.asp

popfile

[Monoecus]

Why not using a program like popfile (http://getpopfile.org/)?

Could be worse...

[AmonTheMetalhead]

In Belgium someone was tried & convicted for stalking a city office because he kept mailing them....


The guy dared send them 130 or so mails over a period of 5 years, the bloody criminal!

Dutch article
Google translated version

Re:Could be worse...

[Hognoxious]

That's over two per month, what a nutter!

Seriously, I get more unsolicited phone calls (which are much more obtrusive compared to emails) than that. Can I have some money please?

Re:Could be worse...

[Chakde Phate!]

According to your article (the Google translation anyway, sorry don't read Dutch) the city officials claimed that his letters crossed the line from civil complaints about the issue to actual threats against individuals. It doesn't seem at all unreasonable for personal threats to land you with a one-way ticket to jail...

Re:Could be worse...

[AmonTheMetalhead]

Well it depends on whom you believe, the person stating he was issuing threats also said he mailed them daily, it doesn't take a math genius to know that 132 mails over 5 years isn't daily...

They (the city office) also claim they had to assign a person full time (that 38 hours per week) to the task of answering the emails.

The only factual information that the article contains is the sentence, the period over what time frame the mails were sent & the total number of mails, it's plain to see someone is exaggerating here

There are a lot more articles concerning the case, the background and the current situation (it's still being fought out in courts)

I Disagree.

[Jaydee23]

If you actually care about your politics or campaign, then write to your MP direct. Simply filling in a form and spamming MP's simply stops the people who do care from communicating with their MP. Taking your argument to its logical conclusion, we should just have an arms race between different lobby groups who would automatically send every MP a million emails a day just to show how much we care about an issue.

Re:I Disagree.

[samjam]

I disagree - "simply filling out a form and spamming" is not simple, nor is it spamming any more than "simply writing a letter and spamming" is simple or spamming.

Looking at your argument, there is an arms race, and you have to ask why voters are having to do this to be noticed? Clue: look at the response by the MP now he is noticing them as a group that had to coordinate - yes, before he could ignore them singly, now he chooses to ignore them in bulk.

Re:I Disagree.

[iserlohn]

See my post above. MPs should seriously reconsider their operations model in the internet age. They need to be savvy and know how to use things like email filters to group and sort form submitted email and set up methods in which people that do submit these emails can voice their opinion and have a meaningful debate with his or her constituents on the issue.

Our ageing model of representative democracy needs to embrace change. As people are more connected and instant communications easier, we are edging towards a more direct model of representation. Politicians need to acknowledge that and make do as opposed to pushing back.

Re:I Disagree.

[Jaydee23]

You fill out the form once and the lobby firm sends repeated emails. "you have to ask why voters are having to do this to be noticed". Voters don't have to do this, it just seems an easy way to have influence. But real influence takes time and work. This MP was interviewed last night with a representative of the lobby group. The lobbiest had polled his members in the MP's constituency and the majority wanted the group to keep emailing the MP. So the (majority of) 400 members (read self selected) of the group in that constituency want to flood the MP's inbox at the expense of the 50,000 other voters in the contituency who comunicate directly. If I was the MP I would have just routed the emails to the deleted items folder

Re:I Disagree.

[Jaydee23]

As to your point about noticing them in a group, how do you know that a personal approach would not have worked much better, my dealing with my MPs (Charles Kennedy and then Danny Alexander) have always yielded good results within a few days. I've never been ignored.

Re:I Disagree.

[samjam]

Sure, but that's another way of saying that because you've never been ignored, you've never had to try anything else.

I've written to my labour MP when I lived in Leicestershire where he pretty much stated that he would delegate all his thinking and decision making to Tony Blair and that he would vote along party lines regardless.

How's that for being ignored? I'd have to join the labour party to affect party policy if I wanted my view to be represented by that MP.

Re:I Disagree.

[samjam]

I can't relate the scenario you describe there with the facts as I understand them.

38 degrees does not have any kind of auto-repeat email facility that I know of.

38 degrees lets a voter compose a message and send it to the MP. The voter has to do it twice if they want to send two messages.

It sounds like you are describing some scene in which these 400 members selected some auto-spam option; in fact they just said that they wanted to be able to continue use the 38 degrees website to contact their MP.

If you (as the MP) routed the mails to the deleted folder you would have lost 400 voters. Maybe you don't care.

Would it make any difference if 38 degrees sent the message to the voter and then had them forward it to the MP? Or if 38 degrees faxed it? Or had the voter fax it? Or had the voter print it out and send it?

The MP is effectively arguing against people who need help or rely on researchers to analyse the effects of complex legislation in order to formulate an objection. I pay good money to The Open Rights Group and the Free Software Foundation (and the EFF still I think) to keep their eyes on legislators for me.

And I don't want to bring back the division of plebs and ruling classes.

So epic fails to the MP who would rather his voters languished in in-eloquence than organize themselves to present a coherent view that he must find bigger excuses to dismiss.

I get to see my local councillors dismiss requests because some other voters don't oppose the view. It gets harder when a coherent demand is made - but its the natural consequence.

Re:I Disagree.

[rufty_tufty]

As long as it's only the constituents of the MP who write to him about the issue, or join in the campaign to contact him, who cares what motivates them as long as they genuinely feel that way about the issue. How is a lobby group that tries to organise people together to complain (for example) about the Iraq war worse than a tobacco lobby group (except that the lobby group probably takes the MP out to an all expenses lunch).
AFAICT the main job of an MP is to work out what the views of his electorate are and then represent those views in the debate sessions of parliament. Now if you want to organise a pressure group a standard email that is easy to filter is probably a boon because then the MP can easily say 40% of my electorate cared enough about this issue, to at least go online, fill out their details an let him know their thoughts, whereas only 20% objected to the issue enough to do the same. Even if this amounts to hundreds of thousands of emails then that is quickly dealt with by even the most trivial email filters and he has very useful information about how to do his job well.
All this of course supposes that the MP realises that he works for the electorate, which in my experience is not as common as it should be.

Re:I Disagree.

[Jaydee23]

Get real, MP's vote for their manifesto and act to further their political careers. They will help with issues that don't conflict with those two aims. That won't change, no matter how many emails you send. And not being ignored doesn't mean I got the result I wanted in all cases. I'm no th eonly person in the constituency and there are conflicting issues. In those cases you have to get involved and campaign to change the political landscape and again simply filling an inbox with emails will not do that.

Re:I Disagree.

[samjam]

err... that's what I do. When I'm ignored I organized and organize more. I run political campaigns and change the political landscape. I publish what is done and round-up support.

What you were speaking against was the second stage in all of that, but until it has had no response it's hard to organize the next stage.

November/December last year I ran (with a couple of others) a significant community campaign, published and delievred thousands of leaflets, organized petitions, and publiuc meetings with councillors, the council cheif and the MP.

But it's a waste to do all that if a simple email would have worked.

Marshall McLuhan

[Kupfernigk]

It depends on your relationship with your MP. My wife knows our MP well and yes, she will get rapid replies to emails. But I was specifically writing in the context of people sending off emails as a result of stuff read on pressure group websites.

Re:Marshall McLuhan

[VJ42]

It depends on your relationship with your MP. My wife knows our MP well and yes, she will get rapid replies to emails. But I was specifically writing in the context of people sending off emails as a result of stuff read on pressure group websites.

I've never met my MP, and she's a new Tory MP who beat the incumbent in May (although it was the 2nd or 3rd try). I've emailed he a number of times though; about the attempted demolition of the Tory 1922 committee*, once to ask her to Sign EDM 17 (about the DEA), once to ask her to oppose the sunset motion keep 28 day detention**, and finally to ask her about the governments official position on BT & TalkTalk's challenge to the DEA***. All lobbying on "issues", and 3 out of 4 brought to my attention via pressure groups I belong to (PPUK & Liberty). I never copy and paste form letters though, I always use my own words, perhaps that's why I get a reply - the fact that I try and start each exchange of emails thanking her for one good thing the government has recently done probably also helps - no one likes a moaner.

* Whilst I'm not a member of the Tory party, the attempted emasculation of the 1922 committee would have been very bad for parliament - I got into quite an argument about it with her.
**I sent it before the review was announced; to keep 28 day detention, parliament has to vote every year before a certain date, so I knew it was coming up
*** I got a quick email acknowledgment followed by a copy of her letter to the secretary of state - we're still awaiting a reply from him, despite it being sent almost a month ago.

Not from a single website

[Anonymous Coward]

From about 700 people e-mailing him a year (and using one website to send the mail). He can choose to block them if he thinks that he either doesn't care about their opinions or if he thinks he has - after the first few hundred - heard every point they have to make about the issue. But he won't be blocking one website but hundreds of people who wanted to send e-mail to a politician. If his assistants can't handle those mails accordingly (IE: at least skim through the mails quickly to see if there is anything interesting in there that would warrant looking at it in mode detail. a 20 second task to handle an e-mail that someone actually spent time writing to a politician) I don't even know the words to describe such incompetence... But I doubt this is about that. He is just being a jerk.

This guy should shut up...

[Anonymous Coward]

...as long as he expects the constituency to put up with all the nonsense his government produces, he should put up with the nonsense the contituency produces. Fair is fair.

I heard him being interviewed about this yesterday

[Peet42]

First point, he hasn't "removed his address from the Parliamentary website", he's actually had to disable the address.

He says he'll re-enable it when the website he's complaining about remove it from a drop-down list they have on a form - people with too much time on their hands pick an issue from one drop-down, pick an MP from another, type in their name and postcode and hit "send", which means that for every "real" email he gets from someone who is capable of writing down their own complaint or issue he has to plough through 200-odd auto-generated from this site. (Figures are ballpark - I wasn't listening *that* closely...)

It's the "campaigning" equivalent of SPAM marketing, just as annoying and with a law of diminishing returns. He told the guy running the site on PM (UK news show) yesterday that he had no problem with them publishing his address on their site and asking people to get in touch if they had a problem, he just objects to the automated system that encourages bored people to nag an MP about "something".

Arent they your constituents ?

[unity100]

you moron ? maybe you havent realized that emails come from actual people.

You know when

[Anonymous Coward]

http://youve-been-cromwelled.org/ :D Very cool site I like the idea of giving them a constant booting.

How these pressure groups should work...

[awjr]

If a pressure group has a specific issue to address, rather than ask their members to spam their MPs, they should collect signatories and then submit one email to the MPs whose constituants have signed up. The email should also list the set of MPs to whom the email has been sent. It should also provide a respone email address which will distribute the response to the sigantories. If really clever, then the MPs in question come up with a reasoned response each or one official one for each party.

Instead we have this pressure group sending out 700 emails to each of the 600 odd MPs who then have to create an individual response and most need to respond in writing. The cost is enormous.

I can understand why this MP is asking his constituants to write to him. It takes effort. You really have to care about the issue. Sending off an email is easy. Writing a letter and putting in the post shows you actually care.

Re: side of a cow!

[Anonymous Coward]

I would like to know more about this protocol!

Letter from a Non Constituent

[R2.0]

Dear Mr. Raab;

Recently your request to have your official email addressed removed from the public directory. I suggest you look up the term "Streisand Effect" on Wikipedia (or rather, have one of your more internet literate staffers do so).

Sincerely
a_colonist

My MP - and just attention-seeking?

[Grumbleduke]

This guy is my (brand new) MP and so I've been keeping an eye out for him and it strikes me that this is partly him trying to get in the news. He's turned up in a couple of rather silly, but newsworthy debates so far. He's young, keen and probably after a ministerial job at some point - and what better way to get noticed by (and support from) the other conservative backbenchers than by complaining about these "evil, liberal lobby groups sending lots of emails to MPs through the Interwebs... It's also a little hypercritical of him as he was actively encouraging people to send him emails to discuss issues during his election campaign. So, given how important being able to write to an MP is, and the circumstances, I strongly disagree with him removing his email address from "the public HoC Internet".

That said, I think this is mainly 38 Degrees's fault, and I also disagree with what they (and the ORG) have been doing. Writing to one's MP is an important part of the system, however each MP may represent 100,000 people, so if each of them sent an email or letter each time they had a though, this system would break (which is almost what we are seeing here). As such, there is a useful check on this; the effort required to write a letter. Now, it may not seem like much, but when I ended up writing to his predecessor (over the Digital Economy Bill, now Act) it took the best part of a day to write the letter, make sure it was all properly worded, that I had a clear idea of what I wanted to say etc. and find out where to send it. This is a good thing, as it means that the only people contacting their MPs are those that are willing to spend the time and effort to do so. By setting up a mass-template-email system, you remove this check and make it as simple as clicking a button. This is great for us, but terrible for the MP who then has to manually go through all these emails and (unlike a ministerial office, or department) is unlikely to be able to set up a mass-response system - which is what is really needed. [When I wrote to my MP, he had obviously received many template emails/letters on the same issue, so he wrote one response and sent it out to everyone - after the Bill passed.] If anything, the mass-template-emails drown out the real responses, which is a bad thing.

Perhaps a more suitable way for 38 Degrees to act would be if they collect signatures, match them with their MP and send one email per issue (maybe after a week-long campaign) to each MP willing to take part in the system - so that MPs know how popular and important certain issues are, and get the details, but without being overloaded.

Anyways, finally in defence of my MP, it is worth noting that he is still emailable (he's set up a form here) and has explained his reasoning in detail on his blog (which includes his email address, sort of) - where he explains that he isn't against being emailed - he just doesn't want the mass-template emails from any lobby group, whether it is an industry or trade one.

[I wonder how different this story would have been if it was some big corporate website encouraging people to send template emails, rather than a civil liberties one...]

The Thick Of It

[jimbob666]

More and more I realise Parliament is run like in the show 'The Thick Of It' ;-) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F1N6mGk3ec8

Nothing to do with 38 degrees

[mdwh2]

During the whole session, there is a group of 10 people which came in together and spend the whole time shouting out loud how they want something specific done, drowning everybody else during the whole session and pretty much not letting anybody else be heard.

How is each constituent sending one email analogous to shouting?

This is basically what some "pressure groups" do, only they do it via e-mail.

That may be true of some pressure groups, but you have completely misunderstood what we're actually talking about. The issue here is that constituents are sending emails on an issue, but they are finding his email on the 38 degrees site, and (IIRC) using the site to send that email.

In my example above, if the 10 people disturbing the open session were not forcefully thrown out

Um, in what way is a constituent who sends an email via 38 degrees causing a disturbance, and deserve being "forcefully thrown out"?

Completely disagree

[mdwh2]

Sorry, I fail to see the distinction between a written letter, and email. A well written email by that individual should be just as valid.

And it's perfectly possible to spam with written letter (do you not get junk mail?) If a campaign group encouraged people to print out copies of the same letter, and send large numbers of it to their MPs, you'd be okay with that, because it's sent via post and has a stamp? Of course not.

Where I live, we have a very effective resident's pressure group. We have one person who directly contacts councillors, one person who is a planning specialist, and access to legal and scientific information. The rest of us supply funds and do the office jobs. We also have a fund big enough to apply for legal injunctions. This is extremely effective; local Government gets one targeted message.

But how is that supposed to work for national levels? This argument makes no sense at a national scale. 38 degrees as an organisation shouldn't be the one writing to MPs - that's not how it works. It's perfectly correct that constituents should do it. Your suggestion would hand the country entirely over to lobbyists.

and they know that it has considerable real support

How? Lobby groups are poor indicators of supports - the groups can easily inflate their numbers, and also claim that every member agrees with whatever political viewpoint they want to push, even if that's not true. Writing in as individuals is far better for democracy.

Lobbying can be done at a national level, but it is also good to encourage people to write to their own MPs on an issue. Whether by email, or letter with a stamp.

Re:I heard him being interviewed about this yester

[Anonymous Coward]

2 a day. That's not a ballpark - that's how many emails this clown receives from this website.

When you have actual numbers he doesn't sound so reasonable now does he? He just doesn't want to hear from the 'kind of people' that don't write letters. God forbid he has to actually represent all the people in his constituency - but don't worry, once the Cons redraw all the boundary lines I'm sure he won't have as many of 'those people' in his domain.

Experience from the Inside

[zabby39103]

I have personally worked for a Canadian Member of Parliament. I totally understand what this guy is going through. If he gets two emails a day from this pressure group, he's lucky (note the source that came from - the pressure group).

I would often spend the the ENTIRE morning going through email bombs. I'm talking 200-300 emails or so per day. Much of them were profanity laced, and not directed to my member in particular, but mass mailed from pressure group websites using a form to blast the entire Parliament of Canada. People would often send the same email several times PER DAY. The only tool the IT department allowed me to use was MS Outlook Message Rules (which helped, but not nearly enough).

It was all about repetition and "louder is better". It borderlined on harassment. I genuinely got excited when I got a well thought out, original email that I could respond to. Unfortunately I had less time to deal with their issue because I had to deal with morons thinking anyone above me would care about their repetitive profanity laced email bombs.

Re:I heard him being interviewed about this yester

[Chakde Phate!]

2 a day. That's not a ballpark - that's how many emails this clown receives from this website.

Well, 38 Degrees claimed that he 'probably' got an average of 2 e-mails a day since the election - but says nothing about the distribution. That could be nearly 200 in one day, which does actually seem like a pretty unreasonable load (especially if it could be repeated an any point, whenever 38 Degrees gets a new bee in their bonnet

And bear in mind he hasn't prevented people contacting him on-line: a few seconds Googling will turn up his blog with an e-mail contact form. That's not a very high bar to reaching him if you actually care about an issue (especially for the sort of demographic which frequents sites such as 38 Degrees

Re:I heard him being interviewed about this yester

[Peet42]

This "2 a day" figure is what the campaigning website said in their own press release. But then they were on the same live radio show as him and didn't refute his totals, which were significantly larger. Like I say, I half-remember it as being "up to 200 a day", but I could be wrong. He definitely claimed a *lot* more than 2, and they didn't argue. They just tried to push their "if he doesn't like our system he doesn't like people communicating with him" line. I think it is *they* who are out for a bit of free press coverage.

"MP"

[Anonymous Coward]

Slashdot is an American website with mostly American readers. I don't insist that we use only American English, but could we at the very least not be deliberately obtuse with our abbreviations? "MP" in American English means one thing and one thing only - a military police officer.

Re:"MP"

[Demanufacturer]

Request Denied

Re:"MP"

[neminem]

A what? I've never even heard of a military police officer. To me, MP means one thing and one thing only: mana point. Or I suppose some games call them magic points. Or possibly also muscle or moxie points, if you're playing KoL, but the point still stands.

Every member of parliament should be email-able

[Anonymous Coward]

I think every member of parliament should be required by law to maintain an e-mail address which can receive e-mail from anyone. If they do something stupid (sorry, WHEN they do something stupid), we should be able to e-mail them about it. I don't care if they have to spend an hour a day doing their e-mail - it's part of the job, and too many of them are too distanced from the people they are supposed to be representing.

And maybe there should be some simple incentive, like not getting paid for those days when they don't answer their e-mail :-)