Column: General Election was the last Christmas gift we wanted

As gifts go, it’s about as exciting, and appetising, as two-day old turkey.

It’ll be fascinating to see how many people turn out on a cold, dark, wet December night to cast a vote for a bunch of politicians whose conduct across 2019 has been utterly grim.

Months of trying to square the Brexit circle – a bit like a three-legged dog trying to catch its own tail – have left everyone beyond weary, and now we have to summon the energy to listen to why candidate ‘X’ thinks they are worthy of our vote. If there’s an option for ‘None of the above’ added to the ballot papers, I suspect it would win by a landslide.

Trust in politicians is at an all-time low. Somewhere between folk who phone you up and ask if you’ve had an accident in the last two years, and those strange people who try to convince you that letting them deposit half a million quid in your bank account is a really sound financial investment.

There are surely good grounds for sweeping them all out – the backbench voting fodder, the ones whose names you never recognise but seem to never be off the telly, and the ones who you scratch your head wondering what it is they actually do all day.

We need to re-calibrate the House of Commons because, right now, if you chuck ed all those bellowing bores who hang around around parliament night and day in the hope of being heard on TV news bulletins on to the green benches. I doubt even they could do a worse job.

And they are, to a man, windae-lickers of thge highest order.

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In fact why not cancel all the campaigning, and just go straight to a vote?

We know the entrenched choices.

Boris Johnson. Untrustworthy, self-centred chancer who thinks if he clicks his heels three times while saying “get Brexit done” it means it is sorted forever.

Jeremy Corbyn: A leader so uninspiring he’d probably struggle tocome second in a two-horse race.

Ian Blackford. Independence. That’s it.

Jo Swinson: Remain. That’s it.

Nigel Farage: Ghastly.

UKIP: Are they even around anymore?

Cast your vote now, switch off your telly the moment the Question Time theme tune strikes up, mute social media, and let them talk over each other for the next six weeks. They truly deserve each other.

If there is anything decent about our politicians – and there are some good ones amid the dross – my slim hope is they will raise the bar and campaign with energy, conviction, and honesty.

Oh, and listen to the voters, even if we did hand them a pig in a poke of a Brexit decision and thought they’d have the smarts necessary to thrash it out.

The past three years have all but shredded faith in politics. They have one last chance to redeem themselves and give us a genuine reason to reward them with our vote. I detect zero enthusiasm for this election beyond the Westminster bubble – but the result will shape this country, and its union, for generations to come. Fear the worst, but hope for the best.