57 letters

Emma Thompson writes to me. My inbox isn’t generally stuffed with correspondence from Hollywood names, so I read it. 62,000 eco minded people have now signed up to own a piece of airplot land, and as one of them, I'm being urged to petition the 57 labour MP’s that have so far opposed Heathrow's extra runway, in the hope they’ll take the same action in Wednesday's Commons vote about the airport expansion.
I sigh inwardly. While Emma may have nannies and cleaners and all the accessories of a glamorous filmstar life that give her time to write to 57 MP’s, I don’t. And how will I know which ones to approach? What are their addresses? Is a personal letter necessary for each one or will the same one do?

I fill Carbonlite in on my dilemma. He tells me a personal letter is much more effective,
“You’ll get a reply from all of them whether it’s a standard letter or one you’ve taken the trouble to compose yourself. But in my experience they engage more if it’s written directly to them,” he lectures.
Great. Now I have to write 57 different letters. I’ve only just managed to get all the Christmas thank you’s off to the right people, and that’s only because I bribed the Carboncopies to do it for 2p a letter. I wonder if their rate is any different for MP’s?

Then I notice a link. Of course, Greenpeace have made it easy; they’re not going to expect all those thousands of people to sit at their desks for a lifetime, writing to unfamiliar politicians. I follow the link to another website that tracks the movements of MP’s. There’s a mechanism for finding my own MP, and details of current and former bills, votes and speeches, on every subject known to political man. I scan for the word Heathrow and find it under ‘recent searches.’ Emma’s other friends have been here before me.

Unfortunately the link doesn’t bring up the names and addresses of 57 MP’s. Instead it brings up a query in the House of Commons by the MP for North West Leicestershire David Taylor. He complains that within a two hour window on Sunday he received 6,000 e mails from Greenpeace members, most of them living in the South East and none of them from his own constituency. He asks if the house can do anything to legislate against this mail bombing? Jokingly the Speaker tells him to treat Sunday as a day of rest and not read his e mails at all. But then he goes on to reassure the MP that the house will look into the issue.

So now I have the name of one of the 57 MPs. I click on his details, and make it 6001.

56 more still to do. So little time. But the carbontoddler needs collecting from playgroup, so I leave the computer and walk to the hall. After lunch we have a children's party to go to. And the vote is tomorrow. A library run follows, then beavers, then work committments when the kids are in bed.

I start to really feel bad about the other 56 MP's, when I read in the papers that some of them have already been 'won round' by the government. But, in a miserable attempt to deflect the guilt and clear the way for some late night TV watching instead of letter writing, I ask myself whether we should be virtual bombing the MP's that didn't oppose the action last time around rather than the ones who did? Aren't they more of a problem? Is Emma really on top of all this?

I go back to my in-box. In the mailbox, below Emma’s request, is a message from the South Lakeland Action for Climate Change group, inviting me to a talk about what I can do before the Copenhagan talks on November 30th. They’re my local group and I’ve considered getting involved before but never done anything about it. The meeting is in a hall in Kendal. It isn’t going to be full of the great or the glamorous, and I doubt Emma Thompson has been invited. But it’s still national action at a local level. I put it in the diary. And feel a little more able to sleep.