How would voting NO to Lisbon meet my criteria for any political decision, i.e. which choice makes my family 1) safer 2) happier 3) wealthier 4) freer 5) most benefits my small market town 6) benefits most people in the country and 7) cause least hardship to as few people as possible.

The main reason for saying ‘No’ to Lisbon is that it damages democratic accountability across a range of key issues.

The Lisbon Treaty, like its earlier guise as the EU Constitution, would significantly increase the EU’s power over foreign, asylum and immigration policy and criminal justice. It would also make the Charter of Fundamental Rights legally binding, whose ultimate effect would be that we would see more judge-made law from the European Court of Justice.

All this would end up meaning that more and more decisions that affect your and your family’s safety and freedom – the issues that you succinctly identify as among the basics for any voter’s rational political choices – would be made not by elected politicians here in Britain but at the EU level, partly by institutions that are not elected, like the European Commission and the European Court of Justice.

So whether voters here thought they were wise or foolish decisions they would be increasingly unable to do anything about it. And those of us who would like to be in a position to do what’s best for the British people, and be held to account for it, would find that our hands were bound by putting the EU in charge in areas where, I believe, action is best left to national governments.

The Treaty would also have an effect which would, over time, make all of us less wealthy: one of the EU’s great successes has been in enforcing free and fair competition across the EU.

That has made all of Europe’s economies more competitive and more productive and thus generate more wealth.

However, Lisbon downgrades the importance of free competition under EU law to allow for more national protectionism. Protectionism never works in the long term and this is a foolish move when globalisation means that we have not only to compete against our neighbours but earn our keep in a worldwide economy.

The public consensus is that there are too many rules and regulations coming from Brussels, and the European Union has too much control over our lives. There is no public support for the Lisbon Treaty. A "yes" vote is a false hypothesis. The Conservative Party will respect the result of any referendum, and thinks the Labour Party is denying us one because it knows it would lose badly

Our research shows that 46% of MPs think that increased staffing would improve their use of ICT, suggesting that workload is an issue in the office (this was also noted by the House of Commons Information Committee as far back as 2002). But the full answer isn’t quite as straightforward as that. The internet clearly also makes it easier for constituents to be in contact with MPs (one to one) and for MPs to keep in touch with constituents (one to many) and this by and large seen as a good thing (87% of MPs think email is a valuable tool and websites are valued by 89%). 

Where electronic communication is seen as negative is in the difficulty of filtering out communication from non-constituents – comments have been made my MPs that it is too easy to fire off an email to a group of MPs. This obviously happens with letters but is more prevalent with email and social networking. 

Another way to answer this question is to look at adoption. All but a very small minority of MPs use email, most have a website and a quarter use social networking tools (and the use of the latter is growing rapidly). They use these media because they are seen as beneficial to them doing their job – and, of course, getting re-elected. Yes, it’s true that many see the internet as a tool to promote themselves, their party and what they are doing but part of an MPs role is to be accountable to their electorate. 

Overall, I think it’s safe to say that the internet increases an MPs workload but it also improves their ability to do their job, providing that they are using it effectively as a two-way communication media and not simply as a publishing tool.

Firstly, I am in it to win it. And secondly, I don’t believe in voting tactically, you should vote according to what you believe. And if you want a positive, safe change, then you’ll be voting Conservative.