If you can’t get a reply from an MP what does it say about our democracy?
Friday, February 19, 2021 at 11:28 I'm beginning to think some MPs are using Covid as an excuse to take the mick.
Next month Forest is hosting a webinar to discuss the Government’s forthcoming Tobacco Control Plan which is due to be announced in July.
Our panel of speakers is pretty much finalised but we’d like at least one anti-smoking advocate on the panel to balance things up and generate more of a debate.
(I don’t know about you, but I hate meetings and events where the speakers are all in basic agreement. Personally I can’t think of anything more boring but echo chamber type meetings are increasingly de rigeur, hence the same old faces time after tedious time.)
Anyway, I’ve been busy inviting potential speakers - MPs mostly - and apart from one or two who declined our invitation but nevertheless replied promptly and politely, others appear to be using Covid as an excuse for their tardiness.
Automated responses refer to the ‘hundreds of emails’ they have received on the subject of Covid and warn that it may take seven days to receive a response. In some cases however we’ve been waiting longer than that and still no reply.
One excuse for not replying is that the MP in question only responds to constituents. Really?
I can understand that constituents should be given priority but not exclusivity, especially if the subject of the correspondence is something the MP has spoken about in Parliament.
In practise it allows the MP to pick and choose who they reply to, which in turn enables them to avoid any interaction or engagement with opposing voices.
The MPs I have been writing to have all spoken in parliamentary debates on tobacco control so it’s not as if they aren’t interested in the subject. It’s there in Hansard for all to see.
As an aside, if you want to see a cosy echo chamber in action, check out the ‘debate’ - Smokefree England: Covid-19 and PHE Abolition - that took place in the House of Commons in November. Other examples are available.
Meanwhile, as well as emailing MPs I’ve left phone messages, also to no avail.
Yesterday I rang the constituency office of one MP and although I didn’t expect anyone to be in the office I thought I’d at least be able to leave a message with my number.
Instead the phone rang and rang and rang and not only did no-one answer, there wasn’t even an answering machine, so even if you were a constituent you still couldn’t contact your MP.
If staff are working from home it should be easy enough to divert calls so they can still take them so why isn’t that happening?
No-one in the private sector would run a business like this or, if they did, they would soon be out of business.
Anyway, here’s one response I did receive:
“Sorry Simon - I don’t work with organisations like Forest.”
To be fair, at least he replied!
There is however a serious point to this. If we can’t engage with our elected representatives, what does it say about the state of our democracy?
Reader Comments (1)
Which is why none of them are worth voting for. Pure ignorance and arrogance to ignore constituents but clearly they don't consider smokers to be their constituents. No one wants my vote so no one gets it.
They deserve to be treated with the same contempt that they treat us with.