“Shameful”, according to Iain. “Naturally, MPs who don’t live in their constituencies – and there are still plenty of them, believe it or nor – will be delighted by this move.”

Dear me, Iain, were you pressed for time this morning and that’s why you were unable to do a bit of research to find out what the amendment actually says?

If this amendment makes it into law, it will mean that all candidates standing at a general election will still have to tell the returning officer at what address they’re registered to vote. That information would be checked, as it currently is, on the electoral register. The candidate would then have an option of having his home address printed on the ballot form or simply the name of the parliamentary constituency in which he is registered. So electors will still be able to tell if their preferred candidate is “local” or not.

Iain might be surprised to discover that one of the reasons so many colleagues of both parties supported this is that many of us have young families who remain in the constituency home while we’re in London. You may recall an incident recorded in Paul Flynn’s book, “Commons Knowledge”, when a young woman, accompanied by her boyfriend, turns up at Paul’s home while his wife and children are alone. The woman wants her MP’s help in clearing her boyfriend of the charge of rape.

Without wishing to break any confidences, I can tell you that many colleagues have reported such incidents in the years since. In the weeks following the 2005 general election, Carolyn answered the door on two occasions to male constituents who were looking for me. They weren’t at all threatening, but she didn’t feel comfortable having to explain that at that moment, I was 400 miles away and she was alone with the babies.

The issue has become more worrying for MPs in recent years, because ballot papers are now posted in greater numbers to voters’ homes; there is a far greater opportunity to take note of the information contained in them now than there ever was when the only time you got the chance to peruse the ballot paper was for a few seconds in the polling booth.

So all candidates, including MPs standing for re-election, will still have to give the returning officer exactly the same information they do at present (the only check that’s ever been made, incidentally, of where a candidate lives. Such procedures, of course, will never be enough for those who feel it is their duty to sit outside an MP’s home with a pair of binoculars, a notebook and a box of doughnuts). And electors will still be able to know if any candidate lives in the constituency in which he’s standing.

But why should anyone pay attention to the concerns of these bloody women and their young children, eh? If they didn’t want to be abandoned for most of the week, they shouldn’t have married an MP. And it’s not as if there have been any actual cases of assault or harassment of MPs’ families, so why should we change the law just to make them feel safer? And surely their insecurity is a small price to pay for the right of the public to know the actual street name and house number of their MP?

I think that’s how the argument goes, isn’t it, Iain?