Im going to write to my MP

[Tedx]

Moderator Message:
Moved from Does Anyone Know, leaving a link, simply so that there is scope for further anecdotal replies. - Chris

You often hear that and some folk do - others go to see their MP in person at the local surgery. And from what I hear, many MP's work hard for their local constituents.

.....but then I heard on the news that the local Conservative MP for Clacton has said that Farage doesn't care about the place. That might be and assuming that he is elected, he may not have much time for the place.

But then I thought 'What about those places where the local MP is also a cabinet minister?' Are they short changed compared our hard working ordinary MP mentioned above?

I can't imagine Rishi Sunak holding surgeries on a wet Thursday night where people come in to complain about the bins not being collected or issues with the local library being closed. Or whatever.

Or maybe he does? Or does he have a minion that sorts all that out for him?

[Gerry557]

I suspect they have a team behind the scenes that does most of the donkey work for them and can probably bat off some of the simple things.

How many people have visited their MP at one of those sessions

I did get a visit from Boris Johnson. He came to the school when I lived in Oxfordshire. I suspect there is some merit in getting a photo opportunity at times.

To be honest, the issue we discussed was actioned and the school was helped, so fair play to him.

[clissold345]

Here's a quote from when Sunak became Prime Minister (Oct 2022):

The Leader of North Yorkshire County Council Car Les said he is not worried Mr Sunak will leave his Richmond roots behind.

He said: "Very few weekends go by that he isn't with us opening a village fete, going to a local school on the Friday etc.

"So I don't have a worry about that except that we do know that his diary is going to so much more crowded so we'll probably see less of him but we certainly won't see nothing of him."

https://www.itv.com/news/calendar/2022- ... role-as-pm

[88V8]

...from what I hear, many MP's work hard for their local constituents.
.....but then I heard on the news that the local Conservative MP for Clacton has said that Farage doesn't care about the place. That might be and assuming that he is elected, he may not have much time for the place.
But then I thought 'What about those places where the local MP is also a cabinet minister?' Are they short changed compared our hard working ordinary MP mentioned above?

All MPs have a team to field the daily stuff. The team will keep the MP abreast of local issues, and respond to correspondence. Depending, you may get a boilerplate reply to a national issue, or something more personal.

Our MP, although I have never seen her in person, seems to work diligently for the causes that matter to her and I have heard no complaints. She does not engage in politicing, just attends to constituency work and as I have said, certain causes.

Nevertheless she will be swept out by the Labour tide and the fact that for many people, national politics seems more important.
If people think about local issues, they associate such things with the Council.

I am sure that MPs with govt positions have less time for constituency work. I do not see how it could be otherwise.

V8

[UncleEbenezer]

I can't imagine Rishi Sunak holding surgeries on a wet Thursday night where people come in to complain about the bins not being collected or issues with the local library being closed. Or whatever.

Hmmm.

Specifically on the bins, I've twice had issues with the council failing to do its job. On both occasions, an email to our very effective local councillor has fixed the matter, as the council jobsworths evidently take more notice of her than of me.

[Urbandreamer]

But then I thought 'What about those places where the local MP is also a cabinet minister?' Are they short changed compared our hard working ordinary MP mentioned above?

From personal experience YES! And YES again!

Some time ago I did write to my MP asking for support, blocking the governments reorganization of state support for Charities.
Let us be clear, there were valid reasons for him to disagree with me and support the government.
What I didn't expect was a letter explaining that as a cabinet minister he could not oppose the government's actions.

If your MP is a member of the cabinet he DOES NOT REPRESENT YOU!

It's very rare that a cabinet minister will actually resign in order to stand against government decisions. The last I think was Robin Cook.

Still things did catch up with Mr Woolas eventually.
On 5 November 2010, the court ruled that Woolas breached section 106 of the Representation of the People Act 1983,
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phil_Woolas

[BigB]

I'm near Theresa May's constituency of Maidenhead in Berks, and she famously (locally) is in the town every Friday visiting stuff and doing stuff, including all through her ministerial times. She has an excellent local reputation, probably a decent staff, and she seems well respected by most/all locals.

[Hallucigenia]

You often hear that and some folk do - others go to see their MP in person at the local surgery. And from what I hear, many MP's work hard for their local constituents.

.....but then I heard on the news that the local Conservative MP for Clacton has said that Farage doesn't care about the place. That might be and assuming that he is elected, he may not have much time for the place.

But then I thought 'What about those places where the local MP is also a cabinet minister?' Are they short changed compared our hard working ordinary MP mentioned above?
I can't imagine Rishi Sunak holding surgeries on a wet T
hursday night where people come in to complain about the bins not being collected or issues with the local library being closed. Or whatever.

Or maybe he does? Or does he have a minion that sorts all that out for him?

Well even backbench MPs have the odd minion who handle most of their constituency paperwork, and ministers will also have a department staff who will take over things like organising his diary. Conversely ministers do like at the very least the odd photo opportunity in the constituency but generally do rather more - after all unless they're in No 10 they're typically still living at least part of the time in the constituency, and in any case still feel a close link having represented it as a backbencher.

Yes they do have less time for the constituency directly, but the constituency usually wins out in other ways. For instance the decision in 2007 to build the aircraft carriers at Rosyth when it hadn't built ships for years surely had nothing to do with the fact that it's just outside the Kirkcaldy constituency (MP - G. Brown), and although the DoT had rejected a plan in 2003 to upgrade the A556 through the Tatton constituency (MP - G. Osborne), the Treasury somehow found £200m for an upgrade down the back of the sofa in 2013. The weird route of HS2 approaching Manchester Airport (referred to in HIGNFY titles of the late 2010s) might also be interpreted as someone being very, very keen that HS2 should not run straight through the same constituency.

[dionaeamuscipula]

The Rest is Politics recently did an interview with Kwasi Kwarteng during which Kwarteng noted that his constituency office received 200 emails a day. I doubt one person could satisfactorily deal with that quantity and hold down any other job of any description.

Arguably the additional time spent on ministerial duties impinges on the MP's ability to hold down other jobs, rather than on their ability to be a good constituency MP. I suspect MP's constituency work is governed more by their desire to be helpful than their available time. One former PM who is now no longer an MP for example was famously as useless a constituency MP as a back bencher as he was as a cabinet minister, although he did give up his side job as a well paid columnist. My current MP is a shadow minister yet holds regular constituency surgeries and has a good reputation as a constituency MP. Will be interesting to see how that goes, assuming their shadow portfolio translates into a ministerial one next month.

Some old timers may have read a series of posts I did on TMF commenting on a by-election in my then constituency, which culminated in me meeting my MP in a kebab shop late one evening. She had done as she had promised, giving up her outside roles, moved to the constituency and spent her summer learning Urdu. An excellent constituency MP, who held down a junior ministerial role in the coalition, she held her seat at the succeeding general election, beating amongst others the Conservative candidate - one Kwasi Kwarteng.


DM

[didds]

Nevertheless she will be swept out by the Labour tide and the fact that for many people, national politics seems more important.
If people think about local issues, they associate such things with the Council.
V8

That's just a case of lieing down with the devil.

She could of course change parties, or stand as an independent.

On e would hope a replacement party MP would do the same sterling job.

[brightncheerful]

When our local MP, Bill Wiggin, was knighted, the local newspaper quoted him as saying he was very surprised. To which one of the electorate in the comments section exclaimed, not as surprised as us.

(I like to think I had something to do with it. I'd written to Boris about something and, in my PS, suggested he might like to give Bill a post in the cabinet or an honour of some sort for all Bill's hard work. I first met Bill before he became an MP when he was merely a candidate. Over the years, my writing to ask him to get something done has always been successful. He got a pothole in the by-pass filled in, for example, even though when I wrote to the county council with the same request, I'd been told it wasn't a priority. )