WriteToThem.com Zeitgeist 2007
WriteToThem sent a total of 174,750 messages to elected representatives (and Lords) in the year 2007. This page contains some facts and figures about those messages. You can find information about your MP in the MP Responsiveness League Table.
What do people write letters about?
Did MPs do better this year or last year?
Which elected body has the most responsive members?
Which party has the most responsive MPs?
What do people write letters about?
We don't look at your messages (see our privacy policy for details), so we don't know what you write about. However, we do run standard web statistics software, so we know which sites people click through to WriteToThem from. Here is the top campaign website which linked to WriteToThem in each month.
| Month in 2007 | Top campaign site linking to WriteToThem |
|---|---|
| January | everyinvestor.co.uk ("independent financial news") |
| February | Animal Aid † ("the UK's largest animal rights group") |
| March | Our World Our Say (on Trident replacement) |
| April | CTC ("the UK’s National Cyclists’ Organisation") |
| May | Liberal Democrats (on Freedom of Information and Parliament) |
| June | Oxfam (an international development NGO) |
| July | Republic ("the Campaign for an Elected Head of State") |
| August | People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (on foie gras) |
| September ‡ | I want a referendum (on "EU's constitutional treaty") |
| October | Radiohead (an English alternative rock band) |
| November | unsubscribe-me (an Amnesty International campaign) |
| December | NO2ID ("Stop ID cards and the database state") |
† AnimalAid use a special branded version of WriteToThem. If you would like one, or customised versions of any of mySociety's sites, please email karl@mysociety.org.
‡ In September we also had a lot of traffic from easyJet, see "easyJet's cheapo astroturfing campaign downs charity servers". However, they were links from an email, which web statistics software can't track the source of, so they don't appear in this table.
Where a site was top for more than one month, it has been excluded from the later months for variety. Non-campaigning sites, such as search engines, directories, TheyWorkForYou, Public Whip, and news stories about mySociety, have been excluded from this table. Most of the campaigns were short term, and their specific page no longer works, so we have instead linked to the top level of the campaigning site.
Did MPs do better this year or last year?
Overall, according to our users' survey responses, MPs were 1% less responsive to constituents' messages sent via WriteToThem in 2007 compared to in 2006. Once again MPs have moved to the middle - there are slightly fewer MPs with dire response rates (below 20%) and also fewer with tip top scores (above 80%). Unfortunately, the now fatter bump in the middle has shifted leftwards a bit, meaning more MPs are scoring below 50% than last year. More details in the full MP Responsiveness League Table.
Which elected body* has the most responsive members?
(* and the House of Lords)
| Rank | Elected body | Response rate (in 2 to 3 weeks) * | People writing for first time † | Messages sent |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. | Welsh Assembly Members | 68% (271 out of 396) | 62% (235 out of 380) | 1,533 |
| 2. | Members of the Scottish Parliament | 64% (635 out of 1,000) | 65% (607 out of 937) | 6,372 |
| 3. | House of Commons | 60% (33,390 out of 55,939) | 51% (26,985 out of 52,408) | 88,200 |
| 4. | London Assembly Members | 56% (153 out of 275) | 59% (142 out of 240) | 4,648 |
| 5. | Northern Ireland Assembly Members | 55% (104 out of 189) | 59% (105 out of 178) | 1,490 |
| 6. | Councillors | 53% (3,348 out of 6,331) | 68% (3,923 out of 5,773) | 30,375 |
| 7. | Members of the European Parliament | 47% (526 out of 1,116) | 46% (483 out of 1,049) | 33,850 |
| 8. | House of Lords | 28% (931 out of 3,333) | 40% (1,181 out of 2,948) | 8,282 |
| Total / average | 57% (39,358 out of 68,579) | 53% (33,661 out of 63,913) | 174,750 |
* Measured by survey of all users, asking 2 to 3 weeks after sending the message if they have got a response yet.
† Measured by survey of all users, asking if this is the first time they have written to an elected representative of any kind.
Which party has the most responsive MPs?
|
- Volunteer to help build sites like this
- Make a donation to mySociety (we're run by a charity!)
- Form a long term relationship with your MP (using HearFromYourMP.com)