For my internship, I am working for a Member of Parliament,
Tom Brake. I split my time working at his constituency office about 30 minutes
outside the city and the Westminster office. This week has been all about
getting a feel for what the average problems Tom and his staff face in order to
best serve their constituents as well as gathering data for the election next
year.
I started on Tuesday and went to the office in Carshalton.
The main work in the constituency office is casework. Someone who lives in the
area represented by Tom will write in with a problem or his/her opinion on an
issue. Our office will then research their case and send them a response in
order to resolve the problem as best as possible. My job the first day was to
take each case (sometimes consisting of entire packets of information), read
through them in order to get a general feel of what the people care about and
how we respond to letters, and then reorder the stack in alphabetical order so
we can reference it later. After that, I tried my hand at proofreading.
Unfortunately, the grammar rules are slightly different and I was informed to
not add any more “American commas,” so that might not be my strength. I ended
the first day learning how to sort mail.
The next day, I was sent out into the community to put up
fliers in local businesses advertising a “politics and coffee” informal
meeting. The weather turned out to be pretty nice after the first half hour,
and it was nice to be able to walk around. When I cam back in, I was given a
computer ID and taught how to enter information about voters into our database
that we can use in the election next year. Volunteers had gone door to door
earlier that month asking constituents their opinions on different issues and
their general political positions. Using this data we can more effectively
tailor information to individuals in leaflets, depending on what’s important to
them.
Thursday was my first day in Westminster and was extremely
cool. I met some more of the staff and was given the task of searching the
newspapers for mentions of Tom, the local council, or the party. It was nice to
be able to learn about the constituents and catch up on their news. The
highlight of the day was lunch! The parliament cafeteria is great- has
delicious food but at a fraction of the price I would pay in the surrounding
tourist area. I also enjoyed being able to talk with my coworkers and find out
more about them. One was from Mexico, another Poland, and the other Norway; it
was quite the international experience. After lunch, I had my chance to work on
casework of my own involving students asking for Tom’s views on the
environment.
On Friday, I was back in Westminster with one of our other
Americans. I was in charge of finding contact information for organizations
around a specific area of Tom’s constituency in order for us to invite them to
local events to report problems in to Tom. Obviously there are politics
involved, but it impresses me how adamant Tom is to help and be of use to the
people he represents. It’s refreshing to see for sure! After a quick lunch, I
created some spreadsheets in order for us to organize petition signatures based
on constituencies. So far I’m 950 through the 1600, definitely a lot of
information.
I went back to the Carshalton office on Saturday morning to
help with one of our Action Days. The entire staff will come in, and with the
help of volunteers, will phone canvass, pass out leaflets, and go door to door
to help report back on what Tom has been doing to represent them and give them
the option to get more information. Tom represents around 100,000 people, a
much more manageable number than U.S. senators. I think this is one of the
reasons politicians feel so responsible to the people here, they have a much
more close knit relationship with them then they do the lobbyist at
Westminster.
