An election is great for the country and can make politics interesting again - Alexander Brown

Rishi Sunak has finally called an election, and I could not be more excited.

For too long politics in Westminster has been stagnant, slow, and meaningless, with a zombie parliament seemingly incapable of doing or saying anything that would have any real impact on our lives.

It’s not that there weren’t announcements, but it was hard to take any of them seriously knowing an election was coming, and that there was every chance there would be a new party in Government at the end of it.

Prime Minister Rishi Sunak on a rare time he did remember an umbrella.

Consider the Rwanda scheme, a policy Labour has vowed to rip up. Controversial, expensive, and still facing yet more legal battles, the policy has devoured hundreds of millions of pounds, hundreds of hours of debate, and it’s probably not even going to happen.

We have all quite possibly wasted our lives talking about and spending emotional energy on something that Sunak never thought would work, and is now going to be scrapped.

There are dozens of examples of this. I sat in the Manchester conference centre at Tory conference last year and listened to Sunak pledge to ban smoking for young people, in an address one Tory MP called the “best speech” they’d seen a Prime Minister give. It’s now dead in the water.It’s the same for introducing a football regulator, ending no-fault evictions, and even a counter-terrorism law that Sunak told the mum of a Manchester bombing victim would pass this parliament. None of this is now happening.

Covering Westminster this past year has been about dealing in abstract, talking about what political parties’ intentions are, rather than the realities of what they will do. The Institute for Fiscal Studies warned that both Labour and the Tories are in a “conspiracy of silence” over their future tax and spending plans. They could get away with it in campaign mode, but soon, decisions have to be made.

Politics won’t just be about vibes, it’s going to be about reality, Labour will not be able to just campaign, they could have to govern.

Then there’s the matter of new MPs, and the new ideas or scandals they will bring with them. With so, so, so many standing down, even if everyone running retained their seat, parliament would still have more than 100 new MPs. Sure, some of them will be terrible, and statistically at least one will have to resign in disgrace, but my God is it exciting to see some new blood.

Parliament is a strange, insular and incestuous world, and it needs to be perpetually reset. This doesn’t have to be a new party in Government, but it desperately requires passionate MPs with a commitment to the causes they believe in.

That’s to say nothing about the campaign, which will no doubt bring spicy debate, scandal, and factional infighting, three of my favourite things.

Then there’s the gaffes, of which Mr Sunak has already delivered in spades, launching his campaign in the pouring rain, then visiting the Belfast Titanic Quarter allowing journalists to ask him if he’s captaining a sinking ship.

I was getting so bored of talking about when the election is. Now we know, and I’m so here for it.