Dear Ed, please tell me it’s hackers and not your advisors writing to me

Last week I received an email purporting to be from Ed Miliband. Yes, it’s not the first time that I’ve complained about this sort of message – but it seems to be getting worse and worse, despite members’ protests on Left Futures and elsewhere.

This is what “Ed” had to say:

Hi David,

On Monday morning we’ll be drawing the names of the two people joining me at our gala dinner — so I hope you’ll throw your name into the hat before the deadline tomorrow night.

And good news: I’ve been told that because so many people have entered, we have a second pair of tickets to give away, so it’s even more likely that one of those names will be yours.

If you’d like to come to our dinner and party next Wednesday (9 July) — and I’ve already put time aside so we can have a chat — please make a £3 donation to help us win the next election, and we’ll automatically enter you into the draw.

I want to offer all our supporters the chance to attend, so we’ll also book a hotel room for the night for you and your guest, and pay for you both to travel to London.

One of the best things about my job is meeting Labour Party members and supporters and I’m really excited about this year’s dinner being a little bit different.

Good luck,

Ed

So this is my reply:

Hi Ed,

Has some anti-Labour hacker taken over the Labour party email server? I am wondering not only because of this email, allegedly from you, but also because the Party website is so poor that it seems to be under the control of people with no interest in winning the next election.

I find it hard to believe that you read and approved this email before it was sent. Do you really want to address fellow party members as if speaking to you is a matter of winning a raffle ticket for the privilege?

Would it not be a better idea for you and your team to reply to their emails asking for information and opinions? For example, I am currently sending the same email repeatedly to Tristram Hunt asking for information about Labour education policy. I have had no acknowledgement, let alone a response. You may remember that I complained to you about the same thing with Stephen Twigg and after several reminders you wrote to me to say that he had been told to let me have the information. The upshot of that was that I received absolutely nothing. Are you sure that you are really in charge or your team?

If you want Labour to stay in contact with its members there are some very simple things to put in place. I am afraid that the idea that the leadership is interested in my views because I may be able to chat with the leader for a few minutes on the basis of winning a raffle just doesn’t do it for me.

And what about that fourth paragraph in the email alleged to be from you? “I want to offer all our supporters the chance to attend, so we’ll also book a hotel room for the night for you and your guest, and pay for you both to travel to London.”? This suggests that all supporters can claim a hotel room for themselves and a guest. Did the person writing this on your behalf have the wit to understand what he/she was writing?

I used to be annoyed at being written to as if I was an idiot. Now I realise that the problem is with writers who assume that the rest of the world is on their intellectual level. Fortunately for the rest of the world this is far from the case.

Please tell me that hackers have taken over and that this email is not from you. Report it to the fraud squad and make it clear to members that we will receive no more of this rubbish and that in future we will be addressed as adults.

I look forward to seeing some sign that you and the shadow cabinet are interested in members’ views.

As for good luck, Labour will need lots of it if it is going to be reliant on people who write emails like the one above.

David Pavett