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By Sally Watson, 20 May 2001 00:01

NEWS In the run up to Britain's first 'e-lection', an exclusive survey by silicon.com challenged 500 MPs to answer a simple constituent question via email, to find out which politicians are able to find the reply button. Despite spending an estimated £15,000 on his new website, Portillo has still failed to acknowledge receipt over four weeks later. The response from Widdecombe's 'Widdy Web' was just as poor. Despite her praising new technology for allowing her to "speak to the voters wherever I am, whenever I want" she was just as unresponsive as her party colleague. E-minister Patricia Hewitt heads the ranks of ineffectual Labour MPs. Only 36 per cent of the party's representatives were able to respond to the simple question about the use of computers in schools. The Conservative Party managed a 42 per cent response rate, while the Liberal Democrats are the most 'wired' with almost half of party representatives replying to the query. Culture secretary Chris Smith bucked Labour's dismal trend replying nine days after the email was sent. Other high-profile technophiles include former Prime Minister John Major, education minister Tessa Jowell and disgraced former Welsh minister Ron Davies. Responses varied from the sublime to the ridiculous. One researcher apologised on behalf of Totnes MP, Anthony Steen. "Many thanks for your email," she wrote. "I should point out however that [Steen] is a rather old-fashioned MP and prefers the traditional mode of communication - pen and paper - to email. No matter! If you would be good enough to send your full address, he will send you a reply." Generally it was backbenchers that faired best, with ten responding on the same day the email was sent. Others took a month to even acknowledge receipt. The response rate is a far cry from the fanfares which launched Blair's £1bn UK Online initiative last year. Pledging to give everyone in the UK access to the internet by 2005 the Prime Minister said: "Making sure everyone has access to the internet will both improve our competitiveness and reduce social exclusion." But with only 38 per cent of British MPs able to respond to a simple email enquiry, that promise still seems a long way off. (For more details on how the MPs performed see: Voters @ a loss over how to contact their MPs
http://www.silicon.com/a44523 ) Part 2 of silicon.com's exclusive survey will be published on Tuesday.