I know David Mitchell wrote of 38degrees.org.uk in a recent Guardian column but I feel compelled to have a bit of a dig at it too.
Feeling politically charged up as I have been recently (see here and here), I took up the request, via twitter, to "Stop the power grabbing Rupert Murdoch" and his company's bid to take a majority share in BSkyB.
I am against his already widespread influence over the UK media and had recently been considering terminating my Sky TV contract and moving to Virgin purely on political grounds. I should, I thought, do something about it.
Clicking through to the 38 degrees campaign, I was presented with the body of an email, already written, which simply required the addition of my name and address before, pending a quick postcode search, being 'pinged' to my local MP at the click of a button.
Having dutifully done so, and within a couple of days of sending the email, I received a letter in the post from Conservative MP Crispin Blunt acknowledging my concern and reassuring me that, were any takeover to take place, it would be duly scrutinised.
I wasn't satisfied though, far from it. In fact, it felt like somewhat of a hollow victory, if a victory of any kind it could be called. Here I had experienced a brief glimpse of democracy at work but, somehow, it had just been too easy.
The problem with these templates and sites like 38 degrees is that, although they encourage you to be active - a good thing in many ways - they don't lead you to consider the finer nuances of a political issue independently.
Instead they push a party line of sorts directly at you, in this case, 'down with the money grabbing Rupert Murdoch'. A monopoly on the media by any one single organisation is an undesirable state of affairs regardless of that organisation's political backing.
Write to your MP about a subject close to your heart by all means but don't go blundering into it with some preconceived gung-ho attack on an individual or an organisation. Instead, form your own independent view, whether it is rational or not, that at least attempts to consider the bigger, political, picture.
Had I done that, when the letter arrived from the House of Commons, hand signed by Mr Blunt, I may have felt a smidgen more proud of myself.
Feeling politically charged up as I have been recently (see here and here), I took up the request, via twitter, to "Stop the power grabbing Rupert Murdoch" and his company's bid to take a majority share in BSkyB.
I am against his already widespread influence over the UK media and had recently been considering terminating my Sky TV contract and moving to Virgin purely on political grounds. I should, I thought, do something about it.
Clicking through to the 38 degrees campaign, I was presented with the body of an email, already written, which simply required the addition of my name and address before, pending a quick postcode search, being 'pinged' to my local MP at the click of a button.
Having dutifully done so, and within a couple of days of sending the email, I received a letter in the post from Conservative MP Crispin Blunt acknowledging my concern and reassuring me that, were any takeover to take place, it would be duly scrutinised.
I wasn't satisfied though, far from it. In fact, it felt like somewhat of a hollow victory, if a victory of any kind it could be called. Here I had experienced a brief glimpse of democracy at work but, somehow, it had just been too easy.
The problem with these templates and sites like 38 degrees is that, although they encourage you to be active - a good thing in many ways - they don't lead you to consider the finer nuances of a political issue independently.
Instead they push a party line of sorts directly at you, in this case, 'down with the money grabbing Rupert Murdoch'. A monopoly on the media by any one single organisation is an undesirable state of affairs regardless of that organisation's political backing.
Write to your MP about a subject close to your heart by all means but don't go blundering into it with some preconceived gung-ho attack on an individual or an organisation. Instead, form your own independent view, whether it is rational or not, that at least attempts to consider the bigger, political, picture.
Had I done that, when the letter arrived from the House of Commons, hand signed by Mr Blunt, I may have felt a smidgen more proud of myself.
