Not very sincere when you do not exist “Mrs. Adams”
An interesting revelation today that 10 Downing Street has been sending out fake correspondence for the last 6 years under the guise of Health and Safety :
Downing Street has told the BBC it uses false names on letters to MPs and members of the public.
The admission came after Labour MP Sir Gerald Kaufman said he got a letter from No 10 signed by a “Mrs E Adams”.
But when he called Downing Street he was told she did not exist as the name was “computer-generated”, which meant the signature was false.
A No 10 spokesman said real names had not been used on correspondence since 2005 for security reasons.
The policy was adopted after a member of the public traced a member of staff in the Direct Communications Unit, that handles letters from the public and MPs, and threatened her at her home address.
The Downing Street spokesman said: “The security team therefore recommended that staff no longer use their own names, as it was deemed to pose an unacceptable and unnecessary risk to their safety.
Not only replying to ordinary people with fake letters but even MPs as well :
Sir Gerald [Kaufman] revealed the practice when he raised a point of order in the House of Commons.
He said he had written to the prime minister on 26 April on behalf of a constituent in his Manchester Gorton seat and had received a reply signed with a false name and signature.
On contacting Downing Street he was first told “Mrs Adams” did not speak on the telephone, before another staff member revealed she did not exist.
What greater demonstration do you need of how the Government views the people that it is supposed to be serving when they are replying to letters sent to the Prime Ministers office using pseudoyms and false signatures? Better still, all dressed up in the all encompassing ‘elf n safety’ rallying cry, used to justify so much these days.
How can anybody receiving one of those replies in the last 6 years actually believe the “sincere” response they received when they now have no idea at all who was writing to them?
I wonder what other Labour “initiatives” have yet to crawl out into the light of day when some random rock is accidentally overturned?
My best guess is that we don’t even know the half of it.
The first two certainly bore the hallmarks of being penned by an assistant, but I’m pretty sure the last one was genuine, as it was clear from the tone that I had got her back up!!
I’ve had replies to the 3 emails I’ve sent to my MP, and at least they were signed in her name. However some time later, when I was looking through them again, I realised that several parts of the different replies were identical i.e. Cut ‘N Paste….
microdave – it would be interesting to know if your MP (or most of them in general) did anything other than sign a pile of repliess presented by their clerical staff in that case.
The last time I wrote to my MP (I think it was about my objections to the clauses in the coroners bill), I received a reply that was definitely a form letter designed to respond to the particular subect as it was barely related to the issues I had actually raised.
MPs seem to complain all the time about their constituency workload but from what I have seen and in your case as well it would seem that they have well trained minders to keep the proles at arms length.