Now it seems some MPs are unhappy with the way the service allows their constituents to get in touch with them easily.

The first complaint was from Colin Burgon, Labour member for Elmet, Yorkshire, via the Parliamentary Communications Directorate, asking not to receive any more unsolicited faxes.

The good folk at FaxyourMP said that both messages it had relayed to the MP were bona-fide. "When we checked with the constituents who faxed him, they both assured us that a) they were constituents and b) that their faxes had been polite, concise and concerned valid issues,".

The second request was from Piara Khabra, Labour MP for Ealing and Southall in West London. His office said: "Mr Khabra is more than willing to take up matters on behalf of his constituents - they simply have to send a letter addressed to him at the House of Commons - but he requires their signature to validate the request and currently has to return the faxes to be signed before he is able to take action on his constituents' behalf."

- If this is the case then email contact with your MP is invalid also - so much for the much hyped e-government! I guess it just goes to show that some MPs may prefer more _direct_ forms of lobbying :-)


FaxyourMP was developed by the same folk who ran www.stand.org.uk as a campaign against the net privacy snooping RIP bill (Regulation of Investigatory Powers (now an Act) - see the stand site or www.fipr.org for RIP info). During the campaign they encouraged people to '@dopt an MP' in order to educate them about the evil big brother nature of much of the rip bill.