Phut ...

... goes Mr Brown's starting pistol, and the General Election campaign 2010 gets under way.

As a current affairs junkie, I will be in my element for the next few weeks. The TV and the radio and the internet will dissect every statement, analyse every insult and sneer, pick over every casual off-the-record remark, and I will be loving it.

Well, for the first few days, anyway.

Bring it on!

(I am still faintly surprised that GB has actually declared that there will be an election. I was seriously expecting something along the lines of a Civil Contingencies Act stunt, where the economic recovery was too precious to be derailed by the untried, untested posh boys opposite, and GB was going to declare himself PM for another five years in the national interest. If that had happened, I would have been profoundly depressed - not because Brown was a loser who couldn't take a fight, but because the general public wouldn't have minded. Riots would have been conspicuous by their absence. "Take to the streets? No thanks, there's Celebrity Come Dancing On Ice Get Me Out Of Here Factor on later.")