This entry was posted on
Tuesday, February 15th, 2005 at
9:09 am and is filed
under UK General Election 2005.

WriteToThem.com – the new and improved version of FaxYourMP – is now in beta release. Go and enjoy.

You may also be interested in the release of ‘From Weird to Wired’: MPs, the Internet and Representative Politics in the UK.

Here’s my favourite bit so far:

First, the survey asked about the visibility of MPs websites. 22 % of all respondents claim to know whether their local MP has an Internet website. In absolute terms, there are still four in five Britons who do not know about MPs websites. The result is however surprisingly high when one considers the overall low recognition rating of MPs (43 %, see above), internet access levels (around 55 %) and the lack of effort most MPs put into pursuing and publicising an online presence.7 Citizens’ predictions tend to be relatively accurate, as 69 % of respondents gives a correct answer with respect to the actual existence of a site for their MP. If anything, citizens underestimate the extent to which MPs are online: 14 % generously credit their MPs with a site when they don’t have one, but 78 % of those who think that their MP is not online are in fact wrong, suggesting that MPs still need to do considerable work on the marketing of their websites.

Cheers to Wainer for some lovely work and a solid credit for Bloggerheads in the footnotes.