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How easy is it to e-mail your MP?

Posted in Uncategorized on April 26, 2007 at 10:44 am

Micro Mart issye 950

What do you get if you send out over 600 e-mails to elected candidates all over the country, and then monitor their responses for two months?

Well, a headache, for one thing. Lots of headaches, really. And a burning hatred of Excel documents, followed by elation when Excel actually does what you ask it to do after all…

And then you get a headline like that.

The backstory is, we e-mailed MPs in England, Wales and Scotland, asking them about the issue of technology recycling — on a national scale, and on a personal, “we’ve got two computers to get rid of” scale. There were several things at stake: whether they’d reply at all; whether their office would reply in their stead; whether they knew anything about the WEEE directive and local initiatives; and even if they had a published e-mail address at all.

Lots of them replied, several of them more than once, someof them very, very helpfully.

But 98 MPs didn’t reply at all. Which, considering how much cheaper and easier it is to bang out an e-mail reply compared with writing a letter, is a bit disgraceful. Five out of every six MPs did reply, though, which is probably more than would have done this time last year, and fewer than would do this time next year. Ah, the march of progress.

(Yes, this is pretty much just a big ol’ plug.)