I’ve had a rant building up about this for some time, but Stef’s always been better at the nuclear-tipped flame than me.
We’ve running FaxYourMp.com for two years now, always in the expectation that Parliament would eventually introduce their own system for making representatives more easy to contact. Not only has that not happened – they’ve now started filtering constituency mails. Their obscenity filter has caught constitutent mails about the upcoming Sexual Offences Act, and a party position paper on – of course – censorship.
Stef has all the facts on faxyourmp.com, and more. It’s really worth reading, both as an examination of where e-government is now, how far it has to go. And how easy it could be to get there.
One of the most heartening aspects of the service has been the letters that constituents write. Almost without exception, the letters they send MPs are reasoned, well thought out, not always perfectly spelled, but often insightful engagements in civic society. Far from the image of a disaffected and disengaged electorate, we see a mass of people who’ve discovered that they can effectively participate in democracy- if artificial and archaic barriers are not put in their way.
I can’t be the only one who sees the irony in the fact that in the week that we celebrate 50K faxes served, the people whose job should be doing what we do for free are still trying (feebly) to raise barriers against the citizenry.
There’s a dramatic mindset change that needs to happen over there, because, if you will not give us greater democracy, we will simply take it from you.