2005-12-08

ePolitico

Something I had almost forgotten about. Last time I used writetothem.com to contact my MP I was encouraged to sign up for a new service whereby you can express an interest in hearing about what your MP is up to and when 25 people have done so within a constituency, the MP would be notified and asked to send something which would be mailed to all the signatories. The notification would be repeated as more people sign up (to a maximum of once per week to hopefully avoid too much annoyance).

Well, yesterday I received an email from hearfromyourmp.com saying that my MP had responded to the sign-ups. Following the link, I found that he had put up a kind of straw poll on ID cards and detention of terrorist suspects, and the site had set up a forum for discussion. I get the impression my MP, Ed Vaizey is rather keen to use this sort of facility to keep in touch — or at least keep up appearances. Fair play to the man.

What interests me most is the growing set of online tools to help us engage in the UK's political process, even in a small way. This can only be a good thing, and long may it continue...

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