FixYourMp.com
Imagine for a minute you’re an MP …ok, cold sweat over… With no general elections on the horizon and Tessa Jowell hogging all the scandal for herself what are you going to do to exercise your unscupulous urges? How about getting in on this “Internet” malarky. That seems to have been the line of thinking taken by Ian Liddell-Grainger the MP for Bridgwater who has been caught sending himself messages through the WriteToThem.com website (the successor to FaxYourMP.com). During 2005 he sent himself a number of messages apparently to improve his responsiveness rating which an opponent was using as a tool against him. WriteToThem noticed this and responded by removing Liddell-Grainger’s entry from their ranking tables. The MP subsequently claimed that his actions were part of an experiment to see how easy it would be to alter the rankings but has failed to explain why messages continued to be sent after the experiment delivered a result. Whilst it’s a pleasure to see MPs getting more involved in the effort to get back in touch with apathetic voters this clearly isn’t ideal.
More at mySociety.org.