Have you ever written to a member of your government?

[cliffski]

Have you ever written to a member of your government?

• yes!
• never…

Have you ever written to a member of your government? To complain, or praise them, to make a suggestion or ask for information?
Its very easy to do, yet most of us never take the time. Most of us complain that our government ignores us and does not do what we want, but do we only communicate with them by a single X every 4-5 years?
How many of you have ever written to or emailed / phoned your representative, and did they ever reply/help?

For the record I’ve regularly pestered my local MP I don’t agree with him on anything, but in his defence, he does reply and he is a fairly clever bloke.

[mrstarware]

I don’t bother.

[noachian]

I wrote to mine Member of Parliament just last week, to tell him about Education on the Monarchy. 8)

[Bukharin]

I am a crazy young person who regularly pesters not only his government, but the government of my adopted homeland. I’ve also written political agitation figures, for a good twist of lemon to the political life. I’ll respect anyone’s political beliefs, but I will never respect the apathy of not writing to or trying to influence the government, when a government is supposed to be based on popular consent, I think. Several of the replies have been very entertaining.

[noachian]

Infact I just got the reply letter back today. It went pretty well actually they said they would come to my school and talk about the Westminster System and the Monarchy, Democracy etc also it told me that my MP is also concerned about political apathy due to uneduction on Government and politics.

[noachian]

@Bukharin

I am a crazy young person who regularly pesters not only his government, but the government of my adopted homeland. I’ve also written political agitation figures, for a good twist of lemon to the political life. I’ll respect anyone’s political beliefs, but I will never respect the apathy of not writing to or trying to influence the government, when a government is supposed to be based on popular consent, I think. Several of the replies have been very entertaining.

Might I ask what your Homeland is Bukharin?

[cliffski]

@noachian

Infact I just got the reply letter back today. It went pretty well actually they said they would come to my school and talk about the Westminster System and the Monarchy, Democracy etc also it told me that my MP is also concerned about political apathy due to uneduction on Government and politics.

tell them to buy my game for schools

[noachian]

Thats not a bad idea actually, that could sort the youth political apathy out in this country. You should sugget it to the Government (the British Government that is).

[TomPhil]

Well, they bought “An Inconvienient Truth” for all schools in the country - perhaps if you could get Al Gore behind the game… Actually, I run a website for a school Politics department and (until recently - I forgot to copy that section of the links to the new website, I’ll have to fix that) I had a link to Democracy on it.

I haven’t written to my MP, although I have met a few politicians through studying Government and Politics at A Level, which is an excellent subject, in terms of the knowledge, skills and experience that you pick up. I met George Osborne (shadow Chancellor), Lord Alf Dubs (Labour peer), and a few MEPs. I also met Hilary Armstrong when she judged a debating competition that I was in last year.

I have also written a few letters to newspapers - in fact, I had one published in a major national newpaper just yesterday

[cliffski]

When I was at school and did work experience, I worked for a week in the department of energy,. One of my jobs was to write letters on behalf of the prime minister (Thatcher) to people who wrongly wrote to her to complain about issues the dept dealt with.
“The prime minister thanks you for your recent complaint regarding your broken gas heating… etc”
The good bit was I got to visit the hoses of parliament, which was pretty cool.
I have also argued at length in the street with an MP during door-to-door campaigning at election time .

[noachian]

What did your debate about with the MP?

[cliffski]

I’m not even sure!, it was ages ago, he was a conservative MP under thatcher, and I was an angry young student with long hair and a leather jacket maybe the poll tax? That was very very unpopular at the time.

[noachian]

Yes, so I saw, I was watching some footage…crazy protests. At least Thatcher was a Monarchist

[Bukharin]

First off… Wow! I love seeing political activism, of any sort flag or stripe… it’s what brings life to politics, you know? First off, to answer noachian’s question, though…

I was born, schooled, and raised in the Russian Federation(former CCCP, bla bla bla ), but for the last two, almost three years, I have lived in Alaska in the United States of America, due to a mix of my home in Vladivostok being condemned(long story), disgusts at the political establishment or lack thereof, and the invitation of friends. Sometimes I have some confusion about how things work in the United States, but Alaska still feels very Russian in many ways… the people there are sad all the time, they drink too much, and there are more street poets in certain parts of the land then you can shake a stick at, so while some of my compatriots(who are probably mobsters, sorry about that. :/) go over to the UK, I went here. I go to Russia fairly regularly, if you have good connections it is not hard to travel to Kamchatka, and from there, go wherever you like. If I ever go for more than a week at a time, I am probably in Vladivostok, and my internet connection is non-existant.

Sorry for rambling though, it’s a bad habit of mine. I have so many questions it is not even funny! For TomPhil, more of a question; what is it like actually meeting politicians in person? Are they oil-slick, or fairly decent seeming individuals? I’m not sure what it’s actually like, but… it sounds like a fascinating thing, as writing and campaigning are different then meeting someone face to face, and it’s really awesome to hear about that. Plus debating is awesome.

Noachian, I’d ask how you hope to help with government-voter apathy and mass uneducation and lack of understanding about government; it’s a great question, and it sounds like your courses and ideas might have at least a few good nods in the right direction? Also, just don’t let the monarch centralize absolute power. We tried that, and it doesn’t seem to matter if it’s a minority or a majority, all they do is bathe their children in precious oil and wine and seen off-key.

Cliffski, my major congradulations on duking it out with an MP, regardless of where your beliefs stood and stand, because… that’s just awesome! actually being able to lay the smack down on a politician… probably the dream of all students of politics. Haha, and my second question, is it all right that this is a bit rambly? this is a wonderful topic, I think.

[Chantern15]

I wrote to US senators because they have more info on them on Wikipedia and on their websites and it’s easier to write to them than my leaders (although I have not tried). This one time I was in a NGO 6 years ago and you had to find out the permanent address of the Lok Sabha representative, or their e-mail, depending on what they had, and then write to them. Seemed too bothersome. Furthermore, the US system has policies written out in great detail and are given more scrutiny by media and there are websites which explore their impact in detail (atleast financial policies, such as the committee for a responsible federal budget’s debtfixer calculator) without having to read hundreds of pages in great detail. Having said that, I should probably write to the budget committee of the Lok Sabha to have them create such a website!