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.

This right only applied to younger children initially. But it's worked so well that we've extended it to people caring for relatives and we're now going to also include parents with children up to 16.

Ultimately, however we need to make sure people have jobs to go to, as you rightly point out. That’s why we’ve embarked on something called Local Employment Partnerships, where over 2,000 employers have agreed with us to look to give jobs to people from disadvantaged groups, and in return we offer help such as pre-employment training or work placements, so people can prove themselves and try out the job in question.

Vince and the Lib Dem view on the debt issue was clearly outline in our manifesto see http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/bsp/hi/pdfs/LD_uk_manifesto.pdf page 10.  There is little doubt that the current global systems need reform.  However, this was our view before the current crisis, based on the imbalance between the rich and the poorer countries that forces developing countries to sign up for the 'Washington consensus' exposing them to global financial capital markets without any protection.  Unfettered markets never suited them and now others realise it doesn't suit us either.

http://www.libdems.org.uk/assets/0000/8906/economic_recovery_plan.pdf