Today the worst kept secret for many a year in British politics was finally out. No prizes for guessing this late in the day as government ministers have been dropping May the 6th since before Christmas!

This is now the fourteenth general election since I was born. Obviously, I was a bit young to appreciate Wilson’s landslide in 1966, but I’ve been following the damned things since 1970. I used to find the general election fascinating, but I’m now struck by an immense feeling of “here we bloody go again”!

Watch out people.

We’re now in for four weeks of saturation coverage, where even the suited and booted party leaders’ very bowel movements will be subject to in-depth analysis by Jeremy Paxman on Newsnight.

We’ll have four weeks of empty promises – milk and honey awaits if you’ll only vote for us! We’ll lower taxes, raise standards of living, pave the streets with gold and find a cure for cancer. We are the miracle workers and the other lot are shite.

It’s all so horribly familiar, all so wretchedly trite.

My five yearly game of “Count the Cliché” began at seven this morning, before the starting gun had even been fired, when the chinless and rather vacuous Michael Gove (pictured) started trotting out the old bromides – “the only poll that matters” – “doctors, teachers, nurses”. Expect a lot of this stuff and try not to throw up.

As Sergeant Esterhaus might now say “Let’s be cynical out there!”