Strap yourself in for six weeks electioneering from those hoping to get our cross in the box. I’ve spoken to plenty of people who are already fed up with it dominating the news agenda. Well, we’re just going to have to suck it up or stream something from Netflix instead.

It came as a complete shock to just about everyone including some local Tories who’ve told me they were as surprised as anyone that the PM called an election for July 4.

Probably only the Prime Minister, Rishi Sunak knows why he decided to go now but perhaps a bit more planning should have gone into his announcement.

Standing outside number 10 Downing Street in near monsoon conditions was not a good look. Did none of his advisers check the weather? Do they not have a weather radar map on their phones? Does no one in Downing Street have an umbrella? Mind you the former PM before Liz Truss, Boris Johnson, couldn’t even work out how to put one up at a very public event.

Have they not got a Conservative party gazebo they could have wheeled out? Apparently, he couldn’t have done it from inside Downing Street as you can’t use government buildings for party political events, hence why the lectern was plain with no government crest on it. It gave the headline writers such an easy day, Drowning Street, washed up etc.

On the campaign trail he’s not faired much better, asking some Welsh blokes if they were looking forward to the European football championships. Someone should have told him Wales failed to qualify!

I’m sure we’ll have plenty more gaffes along the way from all the parties, who can forget Gordon Brown labelling a woman a bigot whilst still hooked up to a microphone.

This election really matters, the country is in a complete mess. The cost of living crisis is affecting so many families and their children, the NHS is on its knees, you can’t get an NHS dentist, immigration is out of control, there’s nowhere near enough police to deal with the levels of crime, women are scared to go out, jails seemingly too full to house the criminals who are found guilty, an absence of decent social care for those who need it, local council funding cut to the core with tens of millions still to be cut from Suffolk alone, closure of youth clubs and Sure Start centres, no wonder we’re seeing things like knife crime soaring. Oh and the roads have never been worse. Where has all the billions of pounds of  taxpayers' money gone? Yes, we had a pandemic and there’s a war in Ukraine, but these issues started well before these global events. Talking of Covid 19, billions were wasted on a test and trace scheme, that really didn’t work, money spent on dodgy PPE, I could go on. My mum used to say: “Look after the pennies and the pounds will look after themselves.”

We’ve got scandals to deal with, the so called Waspi women, who lost thousands in lost pension money; the Windrush scandal; the Post Office scandal; the infected blood scandal; the Grenfell Tower scandal. Why does it take so long to get to the truth? I want an honest government that owns up to its mistakes and puts them right quickly. The infected blood scandal began in the 1970s, how many people were killed and will never see justice, it’s an utter disgrace. People covering their own backsides or words to that effect.

Whoever gets in has got a tough job on their hands. I want a government who’ll get stuck into these issues and start to improve our lives, not make them worse. I sometimes think this country is going backwards. I want someone who is going to give me hope that things will get better. Too many of our recent politicians have been lining their own pockets with second jobs and lobbying. They should concentrate on the job they were elected to do, and serve their constituents wishes. I live in hope!