COLUMN: Maybe there is hope for politics in social media

That means if you post on my Facebook wall or send me a Twitter message, I’ll do my best to either reply directly, or encourage people to email me so we can go in to more detail about a specific case.

Regrettably, social media seems to follow different rules from real life: it’s apparently OK to use language even the unhappiest constituents have never used to my face.

When challenged on calling me a ‘moron’, to take a polite-ish example, one member of the public initially tried defending his approach before thinking better of it and deleting his comment altogether.

Almost like the opposite of real life, many people start shouting, digitally, and calm down when reasons for policies are explained. Almost all, disappointingly for the state of politics, express surprise that they get a reply at all.

Facebook, ultimately, is a superb tool to engage with thousands of constituents and to offer new channels for communication that simply didn’t exist just a few years ago.

And hopefully it’s a chance for sceptical voters to see politicians do care and do notice, even if sometimes we disagree.

Most importantly, I hope, it’s a chance to show that complex decisions are never taken with the aim of making things worse, and always after carefully assessing the best balance it is practical to strike. Maybe there is some hope for hashtag politics after all.

Matt Warman is MP for Boston and Skegness.