Dear
Kathy
Thank you for your letter expressing your
support for same sex marriage. I am afraid we will have to agree to
disagree.
Along with 174 other MPs I voted against the Second Reading of the Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Bill. I had a huge postbag on the issue and the vast majority of constituents who wrote to me were against the Bill.
As the vote showed, I am in a minority and I have no doubt that it will become law.
Along with 174 other MPs I voted against the Second Reading of the Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Bill. I had a huge postbag on the issue and the vast majority of constituents who wrote to me were against the Bill.
As the vote showed, I am in a minority and I have no doubt that it will become law.
Yours
Sincerely,
Should I write back to him and explain the
problems with his data selection method? The contents of a postbag do not
necessarily represent the views of a constituency. By limiting communications to
a postbag, you've excluded those who have neither the ability or inclination to
write. I would hazard that his postbag contains opinions of a greater proportion
of elderly (more accustomed to letter-writing than the electronic generation),*
retired (have enough free time to spend on this), affluent (can afford to spend
time engaging with their MP), literate (probably not dyslexic or
poorly-educated) people than the current population. And that's before even
considering whether people who object to a change are more inclined to be vocal
about it than those who don't. I don't know if any research has been done on
this in general, but the impression I got in this case was lots of small lobby
groups who opposed the change in the law encouraging supporters to be very
vocal, whereas those who supported the change didn't feel the need to do or say
anything because they assumed that the change would go ahead regardless.
*When I told a cow-orker that I had written to my MP, he laughed and said "You wrote to an MP? How old are you? Seventy?!?"
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