Photo by Alex Kotliarskyi on Unsplash

It takes courage to write a letter to your MP (or any of the many other people we lobby in CCL) and we’re incredibly proud of all of those members who have done so. Every letter makes a difference!

But once you’ve made that first contact you may find, as many members have, that the reply is a standard letter that ignores your key points or is jargon-filled and almost incomprehensible. What do you do next?

The temptation is to give up and move on; life is too short for “wading through treacle”. However, as many members have again seen for themselves, this can be the critical moment—an opportunity to clinch true engagement. Most correspondents do give up at this point and so you will stand out if you persist.

However, we know that this next step is daunting and that’s why we’ve created a helpdesk, an email account you can contact if you’ve had a reply and you’re not sure how to respond. It’s not quite as fancy as the picture above (it’s just three of us working from home) but we’ll do what we can to help. Just email us (if that link doesn’t start your email, right click on it and copy the address manually into an email). Attach any reply that you’ve had. We’ll get back to you and see if we can help find a constructive and respectful, yet incisive, way to take your correspondence to the next stage.