Liberty Central have posted a list of ten questions on civil liberties for constituents to email their PPCs.

This list of 10 questions, drawn from contributions to liberty central is intended to take back some of the agenda from the party campaign managers and focus on the key issues of liberty and the state's power, both of which received very little attention in the last three elections. Great changes have been wrought since 1997 and it is generally accepted that the power of the state has increased at the expense of individual liberties. In a very real way this election may be our last chance to review and perhaps reverse these trends.

The questions are designed for candidates of all parties so that voters may gain a clear idea of a particular candidate's commitment to individual liberty and rights, as well as their views on specific issues.

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The beauty of the list is that it may be used by supporters of all parties because of course concern about civil liberties is not just confined to the Liberal Democrats. Both main parties currently contain good democrats as well as authoritarians who think of civil liberties as a luxury brand for individualists. And there will be a large number of new candidates who are an unknown quantity. As well as pinning down sitting members, it's important that we learn about the beliefs of this new generation and persuade as many as possible to express a public commitment to rights and liberties, in meetings or on their websites.

These questions work almost as quickly as a strip thermometer placed on the forehead of the feverish candidate. They give an immediate reading of a person's credentials as a democrat, but behind them are big themes, which in this one precious moment we have a chance to examine the erosion of respect for the innocent citizen, for example, or the trend of the state to intervene in areas of personal choice, even parenting. There is the state's growing sense of entitlement over our personal data, the multiple security lapses in official databases, the conversion of public space into "state space" watched by millions of unregulated cameras, the erosion of defendants rights and the evidence, from such disparate things as tax regulations and control orders that the state is willing to judge a person's guilt and bad intentions without normal legal procedure.

Constituents are encouraged to email Liberty Central with any responses they get, including a copy of the completed card if it was answered in person.

Power2010 has a similar list of questions in the form of its Power Pledge, which constituents are urged to ask their PPCs to sign.

Skeptical Voter have taken this concept one step further, providing a collaborative wiki, which is already growing with responses from candidates. As constituents receive replies from their PPCs, they add them to the wiki to be publically visible. A great idea which streamlines the whole process, and which anyone emailling their candidates should consider using. There are some crowd-sourced questions suggested on their blogpost here.

If you haven't emailled your candidates yet, you can find out who they are and contact them via a single web form at Email your Candidates, an ingenious resource developed especially for this election.