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The Internet Communications Government United Kingdom

'There's Nothing Wrong With My No-Email Policy' (theguardian.com) 110

Posted by BeauHD from the refusing-to-change-with-the-times dept.
Julian Lewis MP responds to criticism over his refusal to use email for constituency correspondence, and says letters, phone calls and surgery appointments are "perfectly adequate." He writes: There is nothing "mysterious" about the fact that I do not use email for constituency correspondence: it is openly stated on the homepage of my -- very extensive -- website, and has been remarked upon in the press from time to time previously. Nor am I in the least "uncontactable," as Bridget Craig (Letters, January 23) knows perfectly well, having corresponded with me by letter without difficulty.

Letters, phone calls, and, where appropriate, surgery appointments are perfectly adequate for people who genuinely need my help, as the many letters of thanks quoted on my website fully confirm. Only mass, manipulative campaigners and obsessive individuals find this a problem -- and so they should! Much of the organized abuse which has caused many MPs to "burn out" and withdraw from public life results from their opening up themselves and their long-suffering staff to interactive online communications by email and social media. Indeed several have confided that they wish they had adopted my unshakable policy right at the outset.
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'There's Nothing Wrong With My No-Email Policy' More

'There's Nothing Wrong With My No-Email Policy'

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  • Makes perfect sense. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by banbeans ( 122547 ) on Friday January 24, 2020 @06:30PM (#59653612)

    Making people actually having to make an effort cuts down on the noise and the important stuff gets more time and attention.

    • Similarly, if you're holding a fan get-together or trying to establish a convention, charge a small fee to sign up. Five bucks, ten bucks, nothing major. Do that and you can actually know how much food to buy and how much space you'll need. Fail to do that and welcome to the eighth circle of hell. People will lie about devotion, but not about their devotion to five bucks.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by jm007 ( 746228 )
        ".....People will lie about devotion, but not about their devotion to five bucks...."

        I might punch it up a bit, but definitely gonna steal it, thanks lol

    • Making people use antiquated methods of communication sure cuts down on the quantity, but in doing that you're excluding more than just noise. You're unlikely to hear from anyone born after the early 1980s.

      • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

        by TigerPlish ( 174064 )

        You're unlikely to hear from anyone born after the early 1980s.

        Why, have they stopped teaching writing on paper after that? Do the Millenials not know what a stamp is, or how to address the various kinds of letter?

        (if the answer is yes, then I despair for this world)

        I grew up with paper, but at the same time I was already doing netmail (go fido!) by the early 90's and internet email by mid 90's. By then I was *barely* an "adult." So yeah, I kinda "grew up" with email too.

        You know what? I prefer the paper and ink and stamp. Email is so .. common, so.. pedestrian no

        • > especially if your cursive looks more like an ekg, like mine does. my penmanship is bloody atrocious)

          I actually went back to printing as soon as I could get away with it. (Starting college? Some time in high school?) for much that reason. It's a bit slower than cursive, but most people can read it. Even with the cursive-esque flourishes that have have made their way into it. My cursive was so bad even I often couldn't tell what I had written a few days later.

          Of course it probably doesn't convey th

          • actually went back to printing as soon as I could get away with it

            I only print envelopes. Most of the time, tho, the envelopes are either ran through the printer, or stamped with my return address. (one of my side interests is stamps, I have a thing for rubber stamps..)

            I actualy have legible cursive. It's not super-pretty, its not something to be shown as an example, but my normal cursive is legible even by those who don't know me.

            My ekg cursive is the stuff I use in my notebook. It's the stuff I use with my old friends, they know how to read it. It's a very compress

            • So what about cursive do you find so valuable that you would take it as indicative of a deeper education? Or is it a symbolic relationship to you?

              • It is hard to learn. I learned it starting in 1st grade.

                But today's educational system seems to center more on "the feels" rather than "the tools".

                It's not symbolic, it's reminder that once upon a time school was hard and centered on thought. But what I see now getting to the workforce indicates that school's easy, and centered around how one feels, not how one thinks.

                That's just my take on it. I know cursive/nocursive is a bit of a polarizer.

                Can you imagine if Japan stopped teaching Kanji because there

                • So, just the fact that it's hard to learn? No other benefit?

                  I mean, I completely understand valuing traditional math over "new math". It's harder to learn, but it's also more flexible and general-case, and lays a better foundation for algebra, etc. since you're teaching general principles rather than situation-specific shortcuts.

                  And I can see valuing *good* cursive penmanship, because it adds beauty - another important function, that comes at the price of difficult learning.

                  But to value a skill *because*

      • So... Nobody born after 1980 would take the effort to write a letter, even on an issue that they find important?

        Huh. Much makes sense now.

        • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

          by guruevi ( 827432 )

          If you're not willing to accept e-mail or other forms of electronic communication, you must not have anything interesting to say. Given he's a UK MP, that is always the right deduction to make.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by MrNaz ( 730548 )

            And I reply with: If you're not willing to take 3 minutes to write down your issue and buy a stamp or envelope, your issue can't really be all that important.

          • Re: (Score:3)

            by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

            If he's in the UK then you can use WriteToThem to send him physical letters for free, online.

      • You say that like it's a bad thing.

      • Because millennials fail to understand that thing they stare at every waking hour can be used to make a phone call?

        Stupid invented non-issue. The MP in question embraces every form of communication in common usage but one - email. AFAIK he happily uses email for MP work communication, he's just not interested in hearing from people who's problems are so great they must bring them up with their elected officials, yet not important enough to write down, dial an office phone number, or stop by his office.

        • Pretty much no. Millennials don't make phone calls.

          And they're not alone. Some of us older folks don't either. Basically there are only three groups of people I'm interested in talking to on the phone; anybody who has an authentic need for a conversation with immediate feedback, older family members who don't do the electronic thing (no longer a factor now that my parents are dead), and people I have a sexual relationship with. Anybody else can contact me by email, text, or Facebook Messenger. Or Slack if I

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by Bert64 ( 520050 )

            Phonecalls are inconvenient, people will call you at the most inconvenient of times and companies will end up putting you on hold for ridiculous lengths of time for the simplest of queries. You end up playing ping pong where you call someone and its not convenient for them, so they call back when its not convenient for you resulting in a colossal waste of time for everyone.

            And then you have difficult accents, background noise etc, or people on different time schedules due to timezones or work commitments et

        • And write a letter? Millennials also don't own printers, so they can't print things from their computer unless they have access to one at the office. That leaves writing out the letter by hand, but they have little practice at that (who wants it anymore?) so their printing is slow and awkward and they more likely than not were never taught cursive writing at all.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by Bert64 ( 520050 )

            Wholly agree with this...
            The last time i had to write anything by hand was in school, all communication since then has been electronic in one form or another. I can type pretty fast, even on a mobile device but handwriting is slow and often illegible. plus i frequently make errors which then look even more messy.
            I also hate receiving anything handwritten, many people's handwriting is difficult to read and wastes my time trying to decipher it.

            And there's no point in practising something which i'm forced to d

        • yet not important enough to [...] stop by his office.

          Most MPs representing constituencies outside central London also maintain an office in their constituency, with permanent staff. The MP is likely in Westminster 4 days of the week, but they'll have staff available to take information about your issue and harass other local officials with letters "from the office of [MP]". Occasionally MPs in adjoining constituencies share an office (even if they don't share a party) to economise on costs, but that's almos

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by epine ( 68316 )

        You're unlikely to hear from anyone born after the early 1980s.

        And just as soon as that generation clues into just how little they are willing to lift a finger to combat the least inconvenience, the sooner we'll have anyone under the age of fifty suited to work in a responsible position of oversight.

        Last night I asked two of the best career managers I've ever met how they are coping with their millennials (and younger).

        "Millennials are great," they both said. They are highly engaged and highly responsible,

    • Sounds more like a conservative boomer snowflake wanting to live off of public-provide dole while hiding in a 1920s safe space.

      Then again, at least he invites creative solutions [youtube.com] to the problem of him being such a pathetic boomer snowflake.

      • As I was saying before some conservative boomer snowflakeTM got his catheter in a twist...

        Whole thing sounds more like a conservative boomer snowflake wanting to live off of public-provided dole while hiding in a 1920s safe space.
        Then again, at least he invites creative solutions [youtube.com] to the problem of him being such a pathetic boomer snowflake.

        Sadly, UK life expectancy is still around 81 years.
        Hopefully brexit will sort that out back to the way it was in 1800s and reduce the number of gammons roaming the countr

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by msauve ( 701917 )
      "Making people actually having to make an effort cuts down on the noise and the important stuff gets more time and attention."

      Yes. But only if it's reciprocal and he doesn't use email in any way to contact/campaign/spam his constituents.

      In the US, my experience is that they think it's a one way street - that they're free to send you emails from a "no reply" address. Same way that the (ineffective) Do Not Call registry doesn't apply to political calls. F that.

  • Hrrm... (Score:2, Insightful)

    by painandgreed ( 692585 )

    Normally, I'd make some snotty remark like 'OK, Boomer". But seeing that they are an MP and people WILL be coming to them with what they see as problems and expecting something to be done, requiring somebody to write a letter in there own words and pay for an envelope and stamp seems fine. If they don't care enough to put out that much effort, then they really don't care enough to really speak on whatever they want to speak about. Seems like a rather low bar to have to get over.

    • Re:Hrrm... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by rtb61 ( 674572 ) on Friday January 24, 2020 @06:55PM (#59653670) Homepage

      Ohh did your missive get lost in the post, poor tidums. Yeah we know why he does not want to communicate with the plebs, absolutely no interest in what they have to say. Hey, ijoit, he represents the people and the people choose the form of communications, not the representative not the fucking employee. The people choose the form of communications not the fucking representatives, they are meant to do everything possible in order to communicate with their electorate.

      • Uh, no. Representatives are supposed to do whatever it takes to communicate with their whole electorate. Not just the half dozen loudmouths capable of filling up his inbox with demands for free noodles at the local gaming cafe.

      • Make stuff up a lot?

      • What you are speaking is pure populism. Ordinary people are neither deep, original, nor articulate.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by jwdb ( 526327 )

        The people choose the form of communications not the fucking representatives, they are meant to do everything possible in order to communicate with their electorate.

        Bullshit. The only thing the people decide about is who their representative is. If they don't like how that representative chooses to communicate, they can vote him out, but he's perfectly within his rights to select his own methods of communication. Hell, if he wanted to it'd be perfectly ok for him to say he won't communicate at all, it just

    • In addition to written letters, he's open to office visits and phone calls.

  • TFS is pessimal (Score:5, Informative)

    by Mononymous ( 6156676 ) on Friday January 24, 2020 @06:39PM (#59653624)

    The point of a Slashdot summary is to explain what we're talking about. This summary doesn't summarize.
    I can only assume from "MP" that you're talking about a British legislator. But I shouldn't be left to assume any such thing.
    TFS doesn't even say what country it's talking about!
    It also gives no indication why American nerds would care how some foreign government guy communicates with constituents.

    • TFS? Who's that? Some president or somethin'?

    • Proper article summary, hopefully (Score:5, Informative)

      by Looce ( 1062620 ) * on Friday January 24, 2020 @07:09PM (#59653708) Journal

      On the 22nd of January, The Guardian published a series of letters from its readers in its Letters section [theguardian.com]. In it, Bridget Craig had this to say:

      I read more and more pleas to "email your MP about this..." I can't email my MP, the Conservative Dr Julian Lewis, as he does not have an email address for his constituents to use. I believe he is the only MP who doesn't let his constituents contact him in this way. I find this deplorable. It should be a requisite of his well-paid job.

      Julian Lewis is a Member of Parliament, and also a doctor. He has a no-email policy. Instead, he requires his constituents (those he serves as a Member of Parliament) to communicate with him by [snail] mail or by phone, and his patients (those he serves as a doctor) by getting appointments with him.

      He saw this criticism levelled at him by Bridget Craig and replied that no, his no-email policy was perfectly fine, and that email is often used for, essentially, spam. This article was also published in The Guardian's Letters section, on the 24th of January, and it was then submitted to Slashdot.

      • Re:Proper article summary, hopefully (Score:5, Informative)

        by Potor ( 658520 ) <farker1@gmail.cYEATSom minus poet> on Friday January 24, 2020 @07:58PM (#59653802) Journal
        Not sure if serious. He is not a doctor. In the UK, parliamentarians meet their constituents one-on-one in what they call surgeries.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by Looce ( 1062620 ) *

          That is puzzling. I could not find any mention of this sort of 'surgery' in Google, even when typing the words "surgery appointment" in quotes or adding "uk".

          I did, however, see that a surgery [bbcamerica.com] is simply a doctor's office in the UK. Ah, the English language...

          Thanks!

        • What a goofy use of the word 'surgery'.

          I am well aware of the ample gap between US English and the mother tongue, but that's a pretty silly one.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by Potor ( 658520 )
            Perhaps to our ears, but at root the word surgeon means "work done by hand," or manual labour (as opposed to theoretical study). In the UK, the doctor's medical clinic also called a surgery. Meeting with people is a hands-on task, and nothing theoretical ... . Although I admit even as a Canadian it sounds odd to me.

        • Constituent: So, what do you think will be the impact of Brexit on our cooperation with the USA, Russia, and the ESA with respect to currently scheduled satellite launches?

          MP: Sorry, this isn't rocket surgery.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by BenBoy ( 615230 )
          His constituents really open up to him in person ...

      • "I read more and more pleas to "email your MP about this..." I can't email my MP"

        She needs to grow up - a phone call to the office is A perfectly fine substitute for an email, does she imagine her position on an issue can only be expressed in email? That some how office visits, letters and phone calls are ignored, as opposed to emails?

    • I know what you mean... I'm constantly seeing off topic posts about some sort of card game as if it were the head of state of a large nation or something... get with the program, editors...

    • I can only assume from "MP" that you're talking about a British legislator.

      OOHH... I wondered why anyone would care whether a army cop looked at his email.

    • He's an MP, so odds are it's about England. Have you never watched any TV or films from the UK?
      There's plenty of US politics-centric news on this site mentioning the FDA, POTUS, CDC, FCC, and we non-americans all work out what's being talked about without bitching about it.
      Have a look at a globe or a map - see those bits of the world outside the USA? There's people living in those places too!

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Njovich ( 553857 )

      The point of a Slashdot summary is to explain what we're talking about. This summary doesn't summarize.

      We're talking about an official that says not using email is fine. What did you get out of this? Also you don't get to decide what a /. summary is about. It's often an excerpt from an article with link included if you want context.

      I can only assume from "MP" that you're talking about a British legislator. But I shouldn't be left to assume any such thing.
      TFS doesn't even say what country it's talking about!

      What does it matter what country he comes from? Never heard MP used for anything other than British. You could have clicked the link if this is so important to you

      It also gives no indication why American nerds would care how some foreign government guy communicates with constituents.

      You don't have to care, please just skip the article, or better yet, leave if you don't like it. If you want no exposu

      • Well, MP isnâ(TM)t an exclusively British thing. Itâ(TM)s a fairly common term globally: Yanks can look a lot closer to home at their northern neighbour for example.

    • Welcome to /. This is how it presents stories. The âoeeditorsâ wouldnâ(TM)t really be considered editors anywhere else in the news industry.

      Maybe youâ(TM)re American and you havenâ(TM)t noticed all the US-centric stories that have insufficient detail to make much sense to non-Americans? Thereâ(TM)s more to the world than the USA, believe it not! :)

  • If you want to talk to your MP, you need to be operated on????

  • One of my "Missed Spam" reports recently was from someone in government.

    The "missed spam" was from a person in government, complaining about what at first glance looked like just some letters from constituents.

    The thing is, it was many letters from many constituents, supposedly, but they were all exactly the same letter, from the same activist domain, just with different names signed to them.

    Did a bunch of "I care enough about this issue to click a link, but I don't care enough to actually compose my own em

    • Re:"But I don't like Spam!" (Score:4, Insightful)

      by guruevi ( 827432 ) on Friday January 24, 2020 @08:51PM (#59653944)

      So the politician is allowed to send us canned letters every month or so "Dear <name>, please vote for me at <your local polling station>, call and e-mail me about your concerns, I won't take away your Medicare!" but then when we send them a canned letter "Dear politician, you told us to send you a letter and we are doing so now, please fix <issue> by voting for <legislation> because we can't afford to keep paying for Medicare" they get all offended?

      F--- them all. You could've just said, I really don't care what my constituents have to say unless they share my belief system or give me money.

      • You seem to miss the point - with a canned letter, there's no way to tell if there are actually hundreds or thousands of people who care about an issue even enough to click a link, or just one really sleazy one. And the latter is going to drown everyone else out if you give them half a chance.

        Now if we had a standard way that we could digitally sign the letter with our real identities, and have our representatives receive it as a petition signed by a bunch of constituents? In my book that would be another

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by guruevi ( 827432 )

          Most people click the link because they care about the issue but many people don't have the time to closely research every detail of an issue even if they agree with the result and the skills to write a letter that is understandable and legible, let alone, without spelling mistakes.

          If they are worried about someone spamming them through e-mail, set up an online feedback form and reject multiple submissions from the same IP within some time span. In most cases, the online mailings do require you to confirm y

          • You realize it's possible to fake where email is coming from, right? And that it's possible for an unscrupulous individual to get their hands on the registration rolls?

            Seriously - if you actually care about an issue at least *print* the canned letter, sign it, and mail it. If you don't care enough to do that, you obviously don't really care - you were probably just inspired to a momentary action by some bit of cheap psychological manipulation.

            That's what you should be doing anyway - *nobody* in politics

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by Bert64 ( 520050 )

              And someone unscrupulous can print thousands of copies and mail them out too.
              Thousands of spam emails coming from one place are much easier to identify and process than thousands of paper letters coming in.

              • Yes they can, but it costs them hundreds of dollars to do so, which at the very least weeds out most the trolls.

                And has been said- a letter means someone cared at least enough to print it and pay to have it delivered - which is a huge step up from only caring enough to click a link in an age of social media. How many hundreds of link-clicks do you think it takes to reach the total amount of real concern it takes to send one letter?

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by Bert64 ( 520050 )

          And with email, it is trivially easy to locate all the identical messages and group them together so you just have a count of them, you can even determine if they originated from the same source server.
          With physical letters you have to open each one and read it before identifying it.

      • I think of it as: If you're sending a letter to one person, then write a personal letter. If you're sending hundreds or thousands of letters, e.g. a newsletter, then print them out with mail merge. It's perfectly acceptable for a political representative to do this. Email is very time-consuming, even if you know how to filter & manage it, so letters, phone calls, & face to face only also leaves a lot more time for contact with constituents that gives a real sense of what they want & how they fee

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by Shimbo ( 100005 )

          BTW, if you really do care about a political issue, do take the time to write a letter, call, &/or show up to meetings. That's far more likely to sway your representative's opinion than an email or online petition.

          This. He may be the only MP to refuse to receive email but they all give much more weight to people who have taken the trouble to write.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by guruevi ( 827432 )

          The good e-mail systems do verify that you have an active e-mail address and also limit submissions per IP, the rest gets filtered out by the government spam filters anyway. Most allow for custom comments as well.

          The reason I like the canned e-mails is that it's likely you'll get a response based on the contents of the message. Send any other e-mail or mail about ANY issue and it's likely it'll get scanned and picked up for keywords, then you'll get a canned response anyway.

          I once contacted Diane Feinstein

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by Bert64 ( 520050 )

            Limiting by ip is dangerous, a lot of providers now use CGN so thousands of unique legitimate users can originate from the same source address.

            • Limiting by ip is dangerous, a lot of providers now use CGN so thousands of unique legitimate users can originate from the same source address.

              And those with ill intent use botnets so every email comes from a different IP.

      • His constituents can pick up a phone (it's the thing you would have sent the email from), or write a letter.

        Wow, such barriers to communication!

  • My hero. (Score:3)

    by binarybum ( 468664 ) on Friday January 24, 2020 @06:58PM (#59653680) Homepage

    This is a win win. If you actually have something to say to this guy I bet he pays attention to it. I only wish I was high up enough on the proverbial food chain to get away with such a policy. In the meantime I'll continue to wallow in a sea of unnecessary emails and waste precious time doing so.

    • Sure: eliminate one legal form of communication governments have embraced for decades, because it is challenging for Mr. Lewis' staff to deal with. He glosses over the fact he receives a very generous office budget to pay for that staff, whose normal and expected duties in the 21st century include handling email, warts and all.
      For the constituent, email is quick, easy and legible. Sender has an exact copy of the message, and when it was sent. Sender can attach relevant pictu

      • His elimination of email address a form of communication is about as limiting as his office hours.

        You imagine how he handles phone calls, then attack him because you don't agree with the way you imagine he handles them.... there's a name for that, isn't there? Oh yeah, a Strawman argument.

  • Because I guarantee you no MP ( or congressman, senator, assemblyman, mayor, governor, etc) ever opens their public email account.

    That is a job for an underling because of all the useless crap that gets in that account.

    If it's important enough for you to actually call them, then call. Otherwise, email a newspaper (give them some reason to stick around).

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by ebvwfbw ( 864834 )

      It's constituent theatre. Not to be confused with Security Theatre that we see at airports.

      Dear _________________,
            We care deeply about your concern over ___________________. I'll talk to my other (senators, MP, etc) personally. We'll consider introducing legeslation to help with this issue.

      Signed,
      Senator/MP/Rep Cotton Picker.

      CC: Standard_useless_idiot_e-mail.txt

  • I wonder how will he be accessible to deaf people if he refuses all kinds of text based communications.

  • Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • I suppose he has the right to be a Luddite and adopt that policy. If I lived in his district, I would also have the right to not vote for him. And I would not.

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