Discomfort with public input

As someone who's spent the last few months emailing MPs on the Civil Union Bill, and egularly encourages people to contact them and lobby on other legislation, I find it rather troubling that our MPs don't like being "flooded". Unsurprising - nobody likes being buried in email - but troubling nonetheless. It bespeaks a discomfort with public input and oversight more in keeping with an aristocracy than a democracy.

I wonder if they had the same reaction to the widespread use of telephones?

Update: Not every MP is unhappy with receiving email from the public. A spokesperson from the Greens has contacted me to say that if Future Times had contacted them, they would have responded quite differently. I guess the MPs they did contact were just behind the times.