InVinceCable We Trust

Here are a selection of texts you can use for good old-fashioned letter and email campaigning. It really does work, particularly for the all important task of demanding our MPs’ attention.
Informal to friends and family
Formal to local and national press
Formal letter to your local MP

The informal email to friends and family

Dear

Just thought I’d grab you for five minutes to tell you about the “In Vince Cable We Trust” campaign, known with greater brevity as #invincecable! This is a grassroots campaign to put some social media momentum behind Vince becoming Chancellor of the Exchequer whatever the outcome of the election. In other words, it’s deliberately an apolitical campaign, and one that may be felt most in the instance of a hung parliament.

We have the choice of Darling (a lawyer who looks out of his depth), Osborne (did work in Selfridges for a short while before becoming a career politician, and who is out of his depth) and Cable (Doctor of Economics, acclaimed for his grasp of this economic situation, and author of a best seller on the credit crunch).

Seriously, if Chancellor of the Exchequer was a job in the private sector, Darling and Osborne wouldn’t even be invited to interview!

You can find out more at www.invincecable.org.uk, follow the campaign on Twitter (follow @invincecable and track the #invincecable hashtag), and there’s also a Facebook group.

Perhaps you’ll consider joining the campaign, but either way do please forward this email to anyone you think would be interested.

[INSERT FOR 29TH MARCH 2009]

And this evening, Channel 4 is hosting the Chancellors’ Debate, a live TV face-off between Cable, Darling and Osborne. Viewers can vote live up to the close of the event at 9pm sharp, so please do cast your vote for Vince!

Best regards / Love…

The formal letter to local and national press

Dear Sir / Madam,

With the general election just a few weeks away, the UK electorate has some critical decisions to make. The mess that the economy is in has to be the priority for the next Government, be it Labour, Tory, Liberal Democrat or a mixture of these in a hung parliament.

I’d urge your readers to set aside party politics for a while, and consider who they truly believe to be the best-qualified candidate for the next Chancellor of the Exchequer, arguably the most important role in the next Government.

Would you prefer Alistair Darling, a lawyer by training and who shares some (at least) responsibility for the current state of the UK economy? Or perhaps you’d rather pick George Osborne, a career politician and university chum of his party leader, whose experience of the world of business extends to a short stint working in Selfridges.

Or maybe voters would see someone who holds a doctorate in economics, has held the role of chief economist in industry, who forecasted the banking crisis, who has written well-received books on economics and is widely regarded as Britain’s most trusted politician? That man is Dr Vince Cable of the Liberal Democrats.

I’m supporting the InVinceCable We Trust campaign, an apolitical grassroots groundswell to make sure that Vince Cable is this country’s next Chancellor. Details of the campaign can be found at www.invincecable.org.uk. It’s not attached to Vince Cable, the Liberal Democrats or any political party. It’s simply a campaign that wants to see the right man in the right Cabinet job, for once.

Yours,

The formal letter to your local MP

Please note, you should only email your local MP as other MPs are not allowed to respond to constituent concerns from outside their own constituency.

You can use the writetothem.com service to find out who your local MP is and their address, and in fact we heartily recommend continuing with the writetothem service. Simply click on the name of your MP when you find him or her, and you are taken to a form where you can enter your details and the body of your letter. Writetothem then gets back to you in a couple of weeks to ask if the MP has got back to you, keeping score along the way, giving MPs every incentive to reply!

Lastly, writetothem.com filters out letters that appear to be exactly the same as ones submitted previously, so do take the following templates as guides only, tweaking a few bits’n'bobs and adding your own voice and perspective, although do leave in the reference to this campaign and the Web address!

Letter to a Liberal Democrat MP
Letter to a Labour MP
Letter to a Conservative MP
Letter to other MPs

Letter to a Liberal Democrat MP

LibDems MPs are obviously going to be supportive of Dr. Cable but they still need to know about our campaign here.

Dear X,

The UK economy is my number one concern this election time, and according to the pollsters I’m not alone, understandably. Of the three candidates for the position of the Chancellor of Exchequer, Alistair Darling, George Osborne and Vince Cable, Dr. Cable is obviously the most qualified, by far.

Given the gravity of this country’s economic situation, and in the not unlikely outcome of a hung parliament, I urge you to urge everyone that matters in determining the shape of the next government to consider inviting Dr. Cable to take up the position in question, and equally cajoling Dr. Cable himself accordingly.

Lastly, you may be interested in a groundswell of public opinion in this regard under the banner “In Vince Cable We Trust”, more information about which can be found at www.invincecable.org.uk.

I appreciate that your stance on the matter right now will be focused on the Liberal Democrats winning the election, but the economy is in too critical a condition, I trust you’ll agree, for such trite and plainly obvious observations in reply.

I look forward to hearing from you.

Yours sincerely,

Letter to a Labour MP

Dear X,

The UK economy is my number one concern this election time, and according to the pollsters I’m not alone, understandably. Of the three candidates for the position of the Chancellor of Exchequer, Alistair Darling, George Osborne and Vince Cable, Dr. Cable is obviously the most qualified, by far.

Given the gravity of this country’s economic situation, and in the not unlikely outcome of a hung parliament, I urge you to urge everyone that matters in determining the shape of the next government to consider inviting Dr. Cable to take up the position in question. Indeed, perhaps your party could demonstrate its maturity and appreciation of the seriousness of the situation in which we find ourselves and opt for a so-called ‘cabinet of all the talents’ should you secure a majority government, inviting Dr. Cable to be Chancellor of the Exchequer accordingly.

Please know that I’m sure Alistair Darling is a man of considerable talent, but he is a lawyer not an economist. He possesses no doctorate of economics, nor has he written a best selling book on the current economic woes, nor does the general regard for his talent for the role match the high esteem in which Dr. Cable is held. Put quite plainly, if the position of the Chancellor of the Exchequer was a role in the private sector, Mr. Darling wouldn’t even be invited to interview.

Lastly, you may be interested in a groundswell of public opinion in this regard under the banner “In Vince Cable We Trust”, more information about which can be found at www.invincecable.org.uk.

I appreciate that your stance on the matter right now will be focused on Labour winning the election, but the economy is in too critical a condition, I trust you’ll agree, for such trite and plainly obvious observations in reply.

I look forward to hearing from you.

Yours sincerely,

Letter to a Conservative MP

Dear X,

The UK economy is my number one concern this election time, and according to the pollsters I’m not alone, understandably. Of the three candidates for the position of the Chancellor of Exchequer, Alistair Darling, George Osborne and Vince Cable, Dr. Cable is obviously the most qualified, by far.

Given the gravity of this country’s economic situation, and in the not unlikely outcome of a hung parliament, I urge you to urge everyone that matters in determining the shape of the next government to consider inviting Dr. Cable to take up the position in question. Indeed, perhaps your party could demonstrate its maturity and appreciation of the seriousness of the situation in which we find ourselves and opt for a so-called ‘cabinet of all the talents’ should you secure a majority government, inviting Dr. Cable to be Chancellor of the Exchequer accordingly .

Please know that I’m sure George Osborne is a man of considerable talent, but he is a career politican not an economist. He possesses no doctorate of economics, nor has he written a best selling book on the current economic woes, nor does the general regard for his talent for the role match the high esteem in which Dr. Cable is held. Put quite plainly, if the position of the Chancellor of the Exchequer was a role in the private sector, Mr. Osborne wouldn’t even be invited to interview.

Lastly, you may be interested in a groundswell of public opinion in this regard under the banner “In Vince Cable We Trust”, more information about which can be found at www.invincecable.org.uk.

I appreciate that your stance on the matter right now will be focused on the Conservatives winning the election, but the economy is in too critical a condition, I trust you’ll agree, for such trite and plainly obvious observations in reply.

I look forward to hearing from you.

Yours sincerely,

Letter to other MPs (not LibDem, Labour or Conservative)

Dear X,

The UK economy is my number one concern this election time, and according to the pollsters I’m not alone, understandably. Of the three candidates for the position of the Chancellor of Exchequer, Alistair Darling, George Osborne and Vince Cable, Dr. Cable is obviously the most qualified, by far.

Given the gravity of this country’s economic situation, and in the not unlikely outcome of a hung parliament, I urge you to urge everyone that matters in determining the shape of the next government to consider inviting Dr. Cable to take up the position in question. Indeed, in the event of a Labour or Conservative majority government forming, would you consider lobbying for a so-called ‘cabinet of all the talents’ with the invitation extended to Dr. Cable to be Chancellor of the Exchequer accordingly.

Please know that I’m sure Alistair Darling and George Osborne are men of considerable talent, but neither is an economist. Of the three, only Dr. Cable possesses a doctorate of economics and only Dr. Cable has written a best selling book on the current economic woes. The general regard for Dr. Cable’s talent for the role exceeds that of either Mr. Darling or Mr. Osborne. Put quite plainly, if the position of the Chancellor of the Exchequer was a role in the private sector, Mr. Darling and Mr. Osborne wouldn’t even be invited to interview.

Lastly, you may be interested in a groundswell of public opinion in this regard under the banner “In Vince Cable We Trust”, more information about which can be found at www.invincecable.org.uk.

I look forward to hearing from you.

Yours sincerely,