WRITTEN ON August 23rd, 2006 BY William Heath AND STORED IN Uncategorized

With 51 constituents signed up and two reminders from the MySociety posse my local rep, Jeremy Hunt MP finally posted his first message to HearfromyourMP at 11.29 today. It covers the Royal Surrey Hospital, the proposed A3 tunnel at Hindhead, a quarry plan and childcare overheads.

He asks if people want to get his messages via email; I reckon it’s better to do it via HearfromyourMP because it’s open and interactive in a way private email isnt. It reflects the asymmetric relationship between constituent and elected representative better than anything else yet, I reckon, and it’s incredibly easy to use.

I think if people respond and want to do the relationship via the MySoc site then MPs will have to respect that. Let’s watch how the people of South West Surrey take this up…

For the HearfromyourMP Zeitgeist see the league table. Named and shamed is David Lepper of Brighton Pavilion who wont use the service even though 209 of his constituents want to…who will win that one, I wonder? At the other end of the scale no-one seems to want to talk to their Sinn Fein MPs in this way. Jeremy with 51 requests is in the top 100 – they don’t number the positions, but it’s an interactive “make your own league table” based on signups, reminders, or comments. SO two more comments to Jezza and he’ll be up 10 places in the leagues table…
(updated when I realised I hadnt quite understood how it worked. Which is quite an achievement because it could hardly be simpler or better designed….)