NOW I know that when I mention the dreaded word referendum, many of you will be tempted to chuck your Journal in the recycling box immediately, muttering “Blow that for a game of soldiers!”

Please don’t. I need to let off steam!

Because unlike the strangers who’ve been bombarding me with emails and Facebook posts lately, having obtained my contact details by nefarious means, I don’t want to pummel you into submission and instruct you how to vote.

I’m still trying to decide what I think.

Part of me looks at the bureaucracy, corruption and lack of real democracy in the EU and wants nothing to do with it.

Part of me thinks, however, that it’s the best, the only hope that we’ve got of protecting our environment or workers’ rights.

All of me hates the thought of our green spaces being concreted over to house an ever-expanding population, wherever they come from.

All of me loathes the way the immigration debate has been hijacked by bigots on both sides and tied up inextricably with the future of the NHS when it’s the fault of successive governments that we haven’t trained enough staff and (worse) haven’t a clue how to keep the ones we’ve got.

And every single bit of me is sick to the back teeth of being told what to vote by people whose principal claim to fame is being full of their own importance.

Take David Cameron. (No jokes! I don’t want him either!) If he sincerely believes, as the BBC reported on Monday, that leaving the EU would be like “exploding a bomb” under the economy, why hand such a decision to the likes of you and me?

A prime minister wouldn’t be that irresponsible. Would he? So I don’t believe that this is what Call Me Dave really thinks.

Take Owen Jones. Who? You know, that odiously cocky, overgrown schoolboy and Left-wing columnist who’s popping up all over the telly. Only a year ago he was writing in the Guardian that the case for Out “grows ever stronger. Now he’s posting ‘Six Reasons to Remain’ on YouTube.

Take (with a pinch of salt) Boris Johnson.

The artfully-dishevelled self-publicist can be seen in his true colours, contradicting himself left, right and centre on blogger Tom Pride’s Facebook post The Great EU Debate: Boris v Boris.

Fascinating, isn’t it, that according to a survey, the person most trusted by the public about what would happen to our economy after an Out vote is a journalist?

No, sadly, it’s not me. It’s Martin Lewis – the man who launched moneysavingexpert.com and became the face of personal finance on TV.

People want facts, but Lewis says there aren’t any, only various risks to be assessed according to what matters most to you.

So make up your own mind, that’s his advice. I’m still trying.

anneriddle36@gmail.com