Wednesday 6 February 2013

Give Your MP A Nudge For A Change

MPs have been merrily nudging you into conforming to their idea of how you should live your life for over two years now. Here's your chance to nudge him/her back, and it'll only take a minute.

So, you signed up to the Hands Off Our Packs campaign, and maybe submitted a full response to the plain packs consultation, but civil servants will have read those and are not very keen on ditching authoritarian plans they have been paid out of our taxes to devise.

As a result, sadly, many MPs don't know that half a million responses were received by the Department of Health in opposition to plain packaging. Well, Nick Clegg certainly didn't, anyway.

So please do make sure your MP is aware by taking a few moments to write to him. As Simon Clark explains, it really couldn't be more simple.
To make it easy we have created a special standalone website, Say No To Plain Packs. All you have to do is: 
1. Visit www.no2plainpacks.org
2. Enter your postcode

3. Click 'Next'
4. Enter your name and address
5. Click 'Submit' 
To make the letter as personal as possible we recommend that you add a comment in the relevant box (but it's not essential). 
Please do it NOW! It should take no more than a minute of your time.
You can also reach the website by clicking on the image below, or at the sidebar on the right.


A pic of your MP will pop up so you know you've got the right guy/gal/hermaphrodite, and if you receive a reply - on House of Commons headed paper, I expect - I'd be very interested as to what response you get.

If you have a website of your own, do consider adding the image above in order to spread the word. If not, share the site on the usual social media channels and with like-minded friends. It's about time they got the message that a joke's a joke but we're all pretty fed-up with their petty interfering by now.


17 comments:

The Filthy Engineer said...

Did it yesterday. Not that I get any meaningful sense out of my MP. Usually some bland response which fails to address the issue. Still, can but hope.

jaycas said...

I mentioned this issue as part of a letter I recently wrote to my MP about the treatment of smokers and the need to look into the activities of TC. I got a surprisingly sympathetic letter back. MP has since written to me wrt Cameron's EU pledge thinking (rightly) that I'd be interested and expecting me (wrongly) to trust Cameron to deliver if they get back in.

P T Barnum said...

Given my MP is Anna Soubry (yes, that one), I won't hold my breath...

Dick_Puddlecote said...

Nice one. If you're not in the game, and all that. :)

Dick_Puddlecote said...

Yes, that is the problem Cameron seems to have saddled them with. Not only regarding the EU, but being against minimum pricing before the election then proposing as policy after (along with the LibDems) and - no matter what anyone thinks about same sex marriage - routinely excluding major policies from manifestos.


Once trust is lost, they're struggling to get anyone to believe them.

Dick_Puddlecote said...

That's a good thing, she won't get it second hand and will probably have to write a letter to Jeremy Hunt. Glorious. :)

barnacle bill said...

Done it, adding the comment -

"This legislation will be of greater benefit to organized crime than for the good of public health."

Dick_Puddlecote said...

Kudos.


It was never about public health anyway, more about providing continuing the gravy train for tobacco controllers. Plain packs proves that conclusively.

P T Barnum said...

Done, with a firm request that she look for herself at the submissions from the law enforcement folk. Will let you know what, if owt, I get back.

P T Barnum said...

Oops, reply in wrong place. Bedtime for this Bozo.

PJHH said...

Isn't the problem with this sort of thing that MPs tend to ignore boilerplate letters they receive (i.e. missives that are identical to the other 500 that they got this morning)?

cfrankdavis said...

Done. I think Bill Wiggin isn't antismoking. Not that I care anyway.

Dick_Puddlecote said...

They may be treated with less care, but if your address is added I believe they are obligated to respond. But at least they will know that the issue exists and that there is opposition to it, I expect that for many - due to aggressive lobbying and emotional blackmail from the tobacco control industry - any anti-smoking proposal is considered as a tick box exercise which they don't need to research.

Dick_Puddlecote said...

Good move, I mentioned the same. :)

Dave Allison said...

Give IM WAR

WAR DECLARED
on Scottish Government !!!

Not many deed !!!

http://www.daveallison.org/

PJHH said...

They aren't (it seems) obligated to respond to any correspondence, since Ian Mearns has seen fit to ignore the four (non boilerplate) missives I've sent him over the last four years...

Sent from my TI99/4A

PJHH said...

Shock horror, Mr. Mearns has replied! Seems he's rather in favour of plain packaging however, and unsurprisingly for a politician failed completely to address any of the points made, preferring instead to reiterate the usual tobacco control rhetoric and invoking "Grandad's law".

I shall be replying.

Sent from my TI99/4A