Blog posts about common user support questions

[MyfanwyNixon]

It's useful to have text that we can direct people to, especially for the more complex or existential questions.

This ticket is so that we can compile a list and then I'll work through them when I have time.

• Is my rep legally obliged to respond to my message? (some thinking already been applied in this thread)
• How to complain about a rep
• What can I do if my rep doesn't share my views? is there any point in contacting them?
• "They Don't Work For Me"

[MyfanwyNixon]

• MPs' code of conduct: https://www.parliament.uk/site-information/glossary/code-of-conduct-for-mps/
• WDTK request about obligation to reflect constituents' wishes: https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/mps_obligations_to_constituents
• Constituency work vs parliamentary work: https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200607/cmselect/cmmodern/337/33706.htm

'Your representative owes you, not his industry only, but his judgment; and he betrays, instead of serving you, if he sacrifices it to your opinion … Parliament is not a congress of ambassadors from different and hostile interests, which interests each must maintain, as an agent and advocate, against other agents and advocates; but parliament is a deliberative assembly of one nation, with one interest, that of the whole; where, not local purposes, not local prejudices ought to guide, but the general good, resulting from the general reason of the whole. You choose a member indeed; but when you have chosen him, he is not member of Bristol, but he is a member of parliament.' Edmund Burke's Speech to the Electors of Bristol, 3 Nov. 1774

'The first duty of a member of Parliament is to do what he thinks in his faithful and disinterested judgement is right and necessary for the honour and safety of Great Britain. His second duty is to his constituents, of whom he is the representative but not the delegate. Burke's famous declaration on this subject is well known. It is only in the third place that his duty to party organization or programme takes rank. All these three loyalties should be observed, but there in no doubt of the order in which they stand under any healthy manifestation of democracy.' Sir Winston Churchill on the Duties of a Member of Parliament

• Ministerial code: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/ministerial-code
• MSPs' code of conduct: http://www.parliament.scot/msps/code-of-conduct-for-msps.aspx
• Welsh AM's code of conduct: https://www.assembly.wales/en/memhome/code-conduct-mem/Pages/default.aspx
• NI Assembly code of conduct: http://www.niassembly.gov.uk/your-mlas/code-of-conduct/
• Councillors' code of conduct: https://www.local.gov.uk/our-support/guidance-and-resources/councillors-guide-201718/councillors-role (users should also check their own council website for council-specific codes of conduct)
• Scottish councillors' code of conduct: http://www.standardscommissionscotland.org.uk/codes-of-conduct/councillors-code-of-conduct
• Welsh code of conduct: https://www.ombudsman.wales/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/Code-of-Conduct-Community-Councils-August-2016-ENGLISH.pdf
• NI code of conduct: https://www.communities-ni.gov.uk/publications/ni-local-government-code-conduct-councillors
• Nolan principles: https://www.leadinggovernance.com/blog/nolan-principles-20-years