Understanding how MPs use ties to their constituency, or localness, is important for understanding the nature of the MP-constituency relationship. MPs are expected to actively focus on their constituency in their work to help their campaign and gain reelection. To explore the relationship between MPs and the use of localness we examine the use of localness in their legislative activity. Combining the focus on constituency and parliamentary behaviour data is not often done and we utilise a dataset allowing us to test the impact of localness on parliamentary behaviour. We support the quantitative findings with qualitative interviews with MPs. We find that, above all, MPs with local ties will seek to signal their localness to the electorate in terms of constituency focus, but not in their parliamentary contributions.

Studies of electoral integrity typically focus on electoral evaluators (expert surveys), electoral consumers (electors) and, occasionally, electoral producers (electoral administrators). Using a unique new data set collected at the British general elections of 2010, 2015 and 2017, this article examines evaluations of electoral integrity among a previously unresearched group of electoral users – the election agents of candidates standing for election. Using measures of both negative and positive electoral integrity, the article models explanations of users’ evaluations, focusing on the agent characteristics, geography and electoral status of the district or constituency. It shows that evaluations of electoral integrity vary significantly and highlights both that questions of electoral integrity are more localised than widespread, and that despite the significant impact of winner/loser effects, issues of electoral integrity are strongly related to the urban characteristics of an electoral district. In so doing, it makes a significant contribution to the literature on electoral integrity.