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I have taken to pointing MEPs and MPs at both Clive Bates's blog and Michael Siegel's - you might also point them at Carl Phillips's stuff as well. Response from one of the researchers attached to an MEP was that they were damned good resources as not only does Michael point out the legislation, but analyses it from a Tobacco Controller's viewpoint, and seems always to come down in favour of e-cigs.

If a particular MEP seems intransigent, then a more targeted approach looking at specific posts by Siegel might be a decent tactic. Providing more and more information can never be a bad thing.

Ace - let us know what transpires, please - it'll be good to keep a sort of tally on which MEP is saying what, and so on.

The idea is to give the local press the kind of headlines that they know will sell papers, have people listening to radio shows and so on. Both Clive Bates and Michael Siegel have nice little soundbites (quotes) which say as much - that this proposal will ultimately be the cause of hundreds of thousands of people dying prematurely if it goes through - so using one of those just might get a lot of publicity. And, let's face it, it's true, and no MP/MEP/MSP is going to want to be branded a killer (I'd stop short of murderer in the first instance).

There aren't any - it's either ideological or due to ignorance. As Clive Bates has said in his guide, we need to keep everything on point and ask for specific action - and keep on asking for it. The more of their time we take up, the more they have to listen to us and the more they become convinced that votes may be affected. So, more hands to the pump. We're effectively setting up a mass lobbying group here, and it needs as many folks to get involved as is humanly possible.

It's also worth remembering that it's an innate reaction of the left to control, the right to support a free market, and the centre to actually weigh the pros and cons. We have to present a compelling case to parties of the left in order to persuade a large enough number that they need to adopt a centre ground policy on it to make a difference.

I would refer them to www.clivebates.com and tobaccoanalysis.blogspot.co.uk/ with an explanation that Clive Bates is the former Director of ASH and he is convinced the proposals are completely wrong, and that Professor Siegel has decades of experience in the forefront of tobacco control and he also believes that the proposals are dangerous to the health of European e-cig users. I would then request a reply asking the recipient to assure that they will represent your opinion that both of the above mentioned have it right and that the TPD should not be so amended or revised, and that, should they disagree, then you would like an explanation as to why.

And then I'd be asking everyone else in their constituency to do likewise, and write to the local press telling them that their local MEP/MP/MSP supports the premature deaths of hundred of thousands of smokers by their unwillingness to quash this idiotic prohibitionist agenda.

That reply of mine above - where I'm preaching to the converted - is also useful as an informative piece that might be included in any correspondence - suitably paraphrased, naturally.

It seems there is a desperate ned to educate our representatives. I'm forming the notion that they think we all use disposables that are, like normal ciggies, a kind of one use thing - hence this outrage at there being 48mg of nicotine in one (as they see it) fag's worth of e-cig. We know it's not - but do they? This is why I think it's important to arrange face to face meetings, so that you can show and tell, educate them, and show that we're not messing about with hazardous stuff in normal use.

Not even remotely. Far too many folks equate Nicotine with "bad". It isn't. Had we got nicotine in a large mug with a frothy top and cinnamon sprinkles on it, nobody would ever have batted an eyelid. The harm is not the nicotine, but the substrate, and that substrate is missing from e-cigs (and e-shisha)

If a "numpty" does happen to try one with some nic in it, it's not going to cause them any harm - and my feeling is that far too few folks are aware of this. e-cigs are patently not "gateway sticks" to traditional cigarettes, and, quite honestly, anyone suggesting that they are is completely unaware that no youngster will go for a Marlbro if there's a tasty option like RY5 kicking about.