Today, I have had an article published on the Guardian website about lobbying by charities. This is what I had to say:
"Something I have discovered as a new MP is that we live in a twilight world of email tyranny. As Michael Heseltine might have said, electronic correspondence comes in non-stop – before breakfast, before lunch and before dinner. Of course it is inevitable that much of this is casework from constituents. But I have been astounded by just how many emails I get from charities and community bodies.
The problem is that these charities seem to think that impersonal emails – often with impersonal invitations to attend this or that reception – are the best way of lobbying MPs. Even worse, they seem to regard effective internet campaigning as setting up a website and encouraging a constituent to fill out their name and postcode, so that the MP receives an impersonal computer generated email from said organisation.
Nothing could be further from the truth. Not only does this kind of campaigning clog up the email system (especially when you receive between 150-200 a day), but the impersonal nature does nothing to ensure that I feel well disposed to meeting with or helping that particular charity or pressure group. These computer generated emails are more a curse than a blessing - and I believe do great damage.
Another practice that is commonplace is for some charities to build a stand, often in Portcullis House, and send a message to an MP stating: "xxxx charity is in the Commons. Come and get your picture taken and we will supply you with a template press release to send to your local media."
Such an invitation reminds me of that old Soviet joke: "We pretend to work, you pretend to pay us". In other words, charities invite the MPs to have photos taken with their organisation, so that they can publish loads of pictures of MPs in their magazines, which they no doubt send to their supporters. Meanwhile MPs are encouraged to turn up to the photocall by the sweetener of a local press release.
However, unless an MP is genuinely committed to that charity, little real benefit is gained, either to the organisation or the MP's constituents. Before I forget, I should mention the vast numbers of pieces of paper that arrive, glossy reports, papers, letters from organisations, nine times out of ten sent as a mass mail-out and often with spelling mistakes. Nor can signatures on Early Day Motions be a substitute for real relationship building.
Now, before everyone starts having a go at me for allegedly being an antediluvian Tory, and anti the charitable sector, nothing could be further from the truth. I am passionate about the renewal of civil society and community organisations, and serve on the Council of the Centre for Social Justice I actually am an enthusiast for the "big society" and participate in local community bodies in my constituency of Harlow.
So what's the best way to persuade an MP to support your cause? It's simple. When I get an invite to visit the local branch of an organisation, I will always go. When I get a personalised letter, hand-signed from a chief executive (as opposed to public affairs officer) that contains local statistics and information, how can I not fail to be interested? When a local constituent calls me asking for a meeting, to talk about his or her involvement in her charity, I will always do it. I remember particularly how I was recently lobbied directly in the Commons by a resident who was involved with a breast cancer charity. She had a profound effect on me. I was only too pleased to support her cause.
So my final advice to charities and the voluntary sector is this: forget the impersonal emails, move away from computer generated email campaigns, stop sending reams of paper by post. Make it personalised and local, and you will not just have my real support, but that of many other MPs as well".
P.S.
You can read further details here:
P.P.S. The Pictures shows David Cameron and I at the Harlow Homeless Centre.
Sent from my BlackBerry® wireless device
