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Originally Posted by Dante Hicks
This really depends on what your MP to do. The last thing I'd want my MP to do is involve themselves in "constituency affairs" - we have local authorities and councillors for a reason, we don't need MPs getting involved in tedious campaigns about litter collections or whatever else. Similarly, you might want your MP in parliament all the time. Good for you. However, since (on the whole) individual MPs are totally ineffectual in influencing the course of parliamentary debates I'm not sure how valuable that would be. Dennis Skinner pretty much lives in parliament but I'm not sure if Bolsover is being transformed into a new Jerusalem any time soon.
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It obviously depends on what you want your MP to do. I can't imagine a world in which it doesn't.
MPs don't actually do the litter campaign shit. They are essentially one of the last ports of call for a constituent - the person we can turn to when most other avenues are exhausted. They have a lot of power to ask questions and demand answers, and they have a fair bit of influence over quangos in promoting their constituents' interests. Councillors, in comparison, are useless and completely retarded - which is why they're in local government. You're advancing the typical view of Parliament of the apathetic intellectual, which is a shame really.
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Originally Posted by Dante Hicks
As for Galloway : He was elected on an anti-war program. He then proceeds to spend most of his time conducting an anti-war campaign. He's done more to advance the anti-war message than any other politician in the UK. I fail to see how this makes him a bad MP unless you think the (largely meaningless) time spent in parliament is the be all and end all of everything.
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Again, the time spent in Parliament isn't meaningless. Perhaps if you read through a bit of Hansard (try PMQs for starters) then you could try to appreciate this. Written questions are pretty useful as well, but not as publicised.