A day in the life of an MP

Get up bright and early, get coffee, head to the office, decide whether or not there is going to be a change of government this year or when to pull troops out of war. This could be just another day in the life of Gordon Brown, MP for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath. Brown also happens to be Prime Minister, so maybe his days are a bit busier than that of an ordinary Member of Parliament. However, regular MPs also have their work cut out, whether they are backbenchers, Cabinet ministers, shadow ministers or committee members.
An MP represents his or her constituency, which is made up of approximately 67,000 electors on average. There are 646 constituencies across the United Kingdom, meaning there is the same number of MPs. An MP is elected by his constituents through a first-past-the-post type of election that requires him or her to command a simple majority. Although an MP usually represents a political party, they are supposed to answer to all their constituents despite party affiliations.
A day in the life of a regular MP would usually consist of attending Parliament sessions in the House of Commons, creating and voting on new or revised pieces of legislation and looking after the needs and complaints of his constituency. MPs also hold ‘surgeries’ in their constituencies where locals have the opportunity to discuss any topic that is of interest to them. These surgeries are usually held once a month, but they depend on the amount of work and responsibility the MP has within the House of Commons.
On a normal day during the Parliamentary session, MPs have the right to a number of actions in their effort to promote causes that affect their constituencies or even issues of national debate. Your MP might have the opportunity to have his or her question heard at Prime Minister’s Question Time or as the last business of the day during the Adjournment Debate. An active MP might also consider putting in an Early Day Motion to draw attention to a particular issue. If he or she is particularly adventurous and considers an issue to be important enough, they might pursue a Private Members’ Bill, even though very few of these measures are successful.
In Uxbridge, the local MP is John Randall. He is a Conservative who works hard for his constituents and has a special interest in the environment. He also holds a special position as opposition whip, so on voting days he can be seen gathering Conservative forces.
Being an MP requires a great deal of time, dedication and public service vocation. That is why a day in the life of an MP is never dull.

Reflective report: When we got this assignment, I started by doing some research about the local MP for Uxbridge, John Randall, a Conservative. It turned out he was elected opposition whip a few years ago, so that was an angle I wanted to explore in my questions. I wanted to ask him if he ever had to send for an MP before a vote in a dramatic fashion.This was a difficult piece to work on because MPs were difficult to get a hold of. I made several attempts to contact Randall, but his secretary refused to put him through. I emailed her the questions I had prepared, but again she said that there was nothing she could do to help. I tried talking to another MP from a nearby constituency (Nick Hurd, MP for Ruislip-Northwood) and got a more favourable response from his personal assistant. I did a quick background on Hurd, also a Conservative, who runs a campaign to stop further developments on certain areas of his constituency. Despite the efforts of his assistant, however, Hurd was not able to get the answers back to me.
I went on with the assignment and made it into a commentary piece, trying to spice it up a bit by starting with Gordon Brown, who not too many associate with the constituency of Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath in Scotland. I was asked to include some information on the local MP, just to make it more relevant for a local newspaper. I added this towards the end of the piece.
I tried to make the article easy to understand, avoiding words and phrases that would be consider too serious as this might deter people from reading all the way through.