Frank Field MP's offer to "reply in kind" to an email he did not like

The entire email correspondence is copied below for you to decide whether Mrs Birchall's email was "grotesquely rude" - as characterised by Mr Field, and whether Mrs Birchall deserved the response she received, or the apology she subsequently asked Mr Field for.
So here are the emails:

From: Hazel Birchall [mailto:XXXXXXXX@hotmail.com]
Sent: 04 November 2009 13:51
To: FIELD, Frank
Subject: Frank Fields Website Feedback

Dear Site Admin
Website Feedback Form Submission
Form Data
Name: Hazel Birchall
Address: XXXXXXXX Prenton Wirral
Postcode: CHXX XXX
Comments / Message:
Hello i just felt i had to say something about you not bothering to show up at yesterdays scrutiny meeting regarding Ridgeway High School. I think its very lame of you to have sent a letter with somebody on your behalf, which simply copied what you said at the meeting you attended at Ridgeway. We are aware that you are in full support of the proposed acaedmies but this does not excuse your abscence from this very important meeting to take on board the feelings of the local community which you are suppose to represent, its the local community that has given you the privaledged position that you are in at the moment, but i am not alone when I say that I hope it won't be for much longer. Thanks again Frank.
Email: XXXXXXX@hotmail.com

From: FIELDF@parliament.uk
To: XXXXXXX@hotmail.com
Date: Wed, 4 Nov 2009 18:50:59 +0000
Subject: RE: Frank Fields Website Feedback
Dear Hazel Birchall

Thank you for your grotesquely rude email. I shall call at your house, If you don't mind, and you can say this to my face, and I can reply in kind.

With best wishes

Frank Field

Office of The Rt Hon. Frank Field MP
t: 0207 219 5193 | f: 0207 219 0601|w: www.frankfield.co.uk
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From: Haze Birchall [mailto:XXXXXXX@hotmail.com]
Sent: 07 November 2009 16:47
To: FIELD, Frank
Subject: RE: Frank Fields Website Feedback

Dear Mr Frank Field,
Firstly the reason it has taken me a couple of days to reply to your email is that i have been very upset, to have received this reply from you. Let me tell you a little bit about myself i am a 32 year old married mum with 2 sons aged 12 and 7 and my new baby is due in just over 5 weeks time. My 12 year old attends Ridgeway high school, which is just one of the reasons i feel so strongly about this school remaining where it is. The reason i felt i had to email you was not to be at all rude which i don't think that i was, but simply to express how upset that i was with you not attending the meeting, it seemed so unfair that you didn't go specially as me, my husband and 2 sons attended, which was hard work sitting for 4 hours especially as my youngest suffer's adhd, but i thought this was so important to go and show our support, that we did. So when we didn't see you there it seemed very unfair that we could all make the huge effort but not you. As you may know the support for Ridgeway on the night was superb, and if you could possibly visit the facebook site and check out the Ridgeway support group which now has over 1,500 members , you may get some idea of what this school means to everybody. I have been feeling very upset, intimidated and threatened by your reply which my family and Ridgeway supporters understand and if it wasn't for all this support that i have then i would be in a complete state over what you said to me, it has really affected me badly, i would never of expected to be spoken to by anybody like this, so to hear these words from an MP is just completely shocking and unacceptable, i would like for you to accept that it was very wrong of you to make me feel like this.
Yours sincerley
Mrs Hazel Birchall

From: FIELDF@parliament.uk
To: XXXXXXX@hotmail.com
Date: Mon, 9 Nov 2009 19:21:16 +0000
Subject: RE: Frank Fields Website Feedback

Dear Mrs Birchall

Thanks for your email.

Let me explain why your original e-mail made me angry in this particular instance. I have developed the role of an MP way beyond tradition demands. My primary responsibility is of course to represent Birkenhead in Parliament. Not Parliament in Birkenhead.

I had to ask to come to that public meeting at Ridgeway two weeks ago. I then had to ask to speak to the meeting. Even then no effort whatsoever was made to allow me the opportunity properly to set out my thinking.

The reason why I have taken such an interest in education - way beyond what many MPs think it proper for them to do - is that Birkenhead's examination results - and therefore the passports given to my young constituents to the real world of work - are appalling. Every year I meet with the Education Officer and go through our exam results and ask what action is being taken to improve on this sorry state of affairs.

The possibility of reorganising the schools into two academies offer the first opportunity in a generation of making a radical change to what is delivered to every young person in Birkenhead. After 13 years of taxpayer investment no community based school gets half, let alone 95 per cent which should be the aim, of young people up to minimum school leaving requirements.

Of course Ridgeway has improved. But it has not improved to anywhere near an adequate level. I was in a few weeks ago talking to the staff on how this improvement was achieved as I am anxious to see success spread - I have another session with them this coming Friday - but there was certainly a need for improvement wasn't there? Two years ago the school simply faced reorganisation or closure on its examination record alone.

Over the next five to seven years the numbers of young people in Birkenhead going to Secondary School will fall by a further 1300. That will make which ever school is at the top end of the borough vulnerable to outright closure.

I have pushed for Ridgeway to become an academy because (a) it cannot then be closed under the normal procedures; (b) it will be able to control its intake from those Park High pupils who do not transfer to the new boys Academy which it would not be able to do unless it gains academy status and ( c) it will see the new school open on the Ridgeway site and therefore gain the advantages of the Ridgeway culture in a school going about its business quietly trying to equip more young people with the skills to gain a job when they leave school - as well as provide all the other important sides of education.

Academies, by their nature, are more flexible schools which can choose how they administer the curriculum. All the evidence available shows that Academies overwhelmingly improve upon the predecessor school's results (I take the point about the schools' targets which I have taken up with the Education Officer). Both these factors prove to me the importance of adopting the Academy project. I desperately want to see great success in Birkenhead so that my young constituents gain the skills required to live full lives.

I could have sat out of this debate. No-one would have criticised me and I could have simply watched from the sidelines as the majority of my constituents failed to gain minimum school leaving requirements. MPs don't get involved usually in the performance of local services.

This is why I take exception to having three emails quickly arriving, one after the other, all suggesting I am a disgrace as an MP because I didn't turn up to a meeting to which I wasn't invited and which, being run by the local authority, I have no status in attending (indeed I might well have been accused of throwing my weight around had I turned up). That is not the style I have adopted as an MP. I have duties to the whole of the constituency and all young people.

If you check anything I have written I have always emphasised the importance about building on success, not destroying that success, but also not using that as an excuse for never pushing for better results. You have every right to get rid of me as an MP. But you ought to do so because you disagree with me not because you think I do not care about what goes on in Birkenhead.

I hope to come and see you sometime on Friday as I box and cox my appointments around my meeting with the staff at Ridgeway.

With best wishes
Frank