On the 1st September 2010 I received an email canvassing for the party leadership from my MP, Mr Virendra Sharma. It had been sent by one of his employees. I replied to the email with the following questions:
“How my e-mail address was obtained , especially in view of the data protection act. What is the protocol with regard to MPs using a parliamentary e-mail address to promote a political party’s candidate in a leadership contest which clearly has no relevance to the work of the Houses of Parliament.”
Needless to say a reply was not forthcoming so I wrote to the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards. The correspondence can be seen by going to the following link: https://www.parliament.uk/documents/pcfs/written-evidence/2010-11/rectified/sharma-hodgkins-090910.pdf
The irritating thing about all this is that MPs are happy to send their viewpoint through to you but do not like to reply to your point of view. This is just another example of the inability of politicians to listen to people. When the person happens to be a constituent and a member of the same political party it only serves to increase irritation, denude trust and the notion of accountability.