Tuesday, 24 January 2012

Getting in Touch

What's the name of your Member of Parliament? According to some online sources only 53% of people can name theirs. Mine used to be Phil Hope (Labour) in the Corby and East Northamptonshire constituency, after the last election it changed to Louise Mensch (Conservative). Whilst at university I was in Roberta Blackman-Woods (Labour) constituency and now in Preston Mark Hendrick (Labour) is my representative.

In the past I've written to all of them on different environmental issues. I wrote to and had responses from Phil Hope quite regularly, we didn't always agree on issues but it did feel like he cared. I only contacted Roberta Blackman-Woods a few times but her responses were always positive and she seemed clued up on the issues. Louise Mensch didn't endear herself to me when she ran her election campaign with phrases like (not exactly quoted!) "I'll save our countryside, I won't vote for wind farms". This type of rhetoric doesn't fill me with hope for a greener Northamptonshire. Her replies always focused on Conservative policy, not answering my actual question but at least she replied.

A few weeks ago I emailed my current MP Mark Hendrick asking him to support Caroline Lucas' Early Day Motion on Biofuelsit says that they're not as great as some people think and that they're taking money away from other renewable technologies. He has now replied agreeing with this, but his six line reply (to my 34 line email) very conspicuously doesn't mention whether he will support the Early Day Motion or not. I looked it up and he hasn't signed it yet. Maybe he will soon, if not I'll be emailing again asking why and also why he ignored my request for an email reply rather than post so that paper would be saved...

Why not get in touch with your MP here, they work for you after all.

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