Platform principles

Editorial standards

Regarding was built to be apolitical: concerned with issues and actions, not with identity or individuals. That is not a comfortable middle-ground position designed to avoid controversy. It is a deliberate design choice.

Regarding does not advocate for a particular government, oppose a particular party, or push a particular policy response. It puts a draft letter in your hands and leaves the rest to you.

Issue selection criteria

Every issue must meet all four criteria before being added to the platform:

The list is fixed and curated. Issues are added through editorial judgment only – not public demand, not trending topics, not submissions.

Evidence and fact

Scientific consensus is not 'one perspective among many.' Where the evidence is clear (climate change, public health data, approved medicines), we say so. Where the policy response to that evidence is genuinely contested, we do not take sides.

What counts as a valid source

Every email Regarding generates draws only from a fixed, pre-approved set of sources selected before an issue is added to the platform. Those sources are not supplemented by live searches or real-time web content. Each issue's approved source list is reviewed before publication and updated when significant new evidence is published.

Official government and regulatory sources – UK government departments and agencies (Environment Agency, DfE, DHSC, ONS, Ofwat, Ofsted, NHS England, and equivalents); parliamentary publications including select committee reports, Hansard records, and answers to parliamentary questions; House of Commons Library research briefings; independent scrutiny bodies including the National Audit Office, Institute for Fiscal Studies, Institute for Government, and Office for Budget Responsibility; and official regulators.

Established research and sector bodies – Charities, NGOs, and sector organisations citing their own published research and survey data. The test is whether the body is publishing primary research, not merely relaying an opinion.

Peer-reviewed academic research – Published in recognised journals or as working papers from established academic institutions.

Established news outlets (secondary confirmation only) – Used to confirm that a fact is publicly documented, never as the primary source. The underlying official or research source is always cited alongside.

What is not admissible – Opinion pieces, leader columns and editorials; social media content; press releases not backed by published data; lobby group claims without supporting independent research; anonymous sources; any source that cannot be independently verified.

How emails are drafted

Every draft is built from a fixed set of vetted, published sources specific to that issue. The platform works from that source material only. The framing is 'concerns not claims': factual concerns are cited to published evidence. The platform never makes accusations or legally speculative claims.

You must review and approve the draft before anything is sent. The email comes from you, and you are its author. No reference to Regarding appears in the email body – the email is a personal communication from you to your MP.

How we handle your personal input

When you add your own experience or connection to an issue, that text is woven into the draft email by the platform. The integration is limited to making your experience sit naturally within the letter. The meaning and intent of your words are not changed.

This is disclosed to you in plain language before you submit. The platform does not reframe, soften, strengthen, or editorially shape what you have written. Your voice is the point.

What we will not do

To challenge an editorial decision or question why an issue was or wasn't included: hello@regarding.org.uk.