Letter to Michael Connarty

It does seem pretty underhand of the government to try to sneak through the Digital Economy Bill on the last day of Parliament before the Election is announced. This Bill will make it much harder for photographers to be paid for the work they do, and that seems wrong in a Bill that claims to be working to protect the "Creative Arts" (see http://www.stop43.org.uk/pages/read_more.html for more information)

Anyway, here's the text of a letter I sent to my MP Michael Connarty today. Let's see what response I get:

Dear Mr Connarty,

Even though it is late, and I am sure your mind will be on other things
today, I ask you to vote against the unseemly shoehorning through of
the Digital Economy Bill.

The Bill has clearly been poorly thought through. It claims to be
trying to promote the Creative Arts, yet in Clause 43 it greatly
reduces the rights of photographers to claim payment for the use of
their own works. Someone wanting to use a photograph need make only
the most cursory of searches for the photographer, and they can happily
go away and use the work without compensating the artist who created
it.

Furthermore, Clause 46 - a so-called Henry VIII clause - allows a
future minister to make changes in the scope of the law without that
being approved by Parliament. I thought we were supposed to be a
Parliamentary democracy - why should a single minister be free to make
sweeping changes to a law without consultation with MPs?

And finally, the suggestion that a family's internet connection may be
disabled because of a SUSPICION of misuse, is clearly contrary to any
form of natural justice. You always come across as a fair-minded man,
so I am sure that you would not go along with something as unreasonable
as that.

I hope you will let me know, at your earliest convenience, that you
have voted to delay this Bill for reasonable scrutiny in a future
Parliament.

Yours sincerely,
etc