Here in Britain the election campaign is well on its way even if we haven’t been given the date yet.
It is that odd time in the political cycle when our politicians start to talk to us.
This is serious stuff – I know this because we are being spoken to face to face, in all honesty and sincerely by people who only have our interests at heart.
Nothing is going to be hidden from us about how our major political parties are going to tackle the nation’s financial problems.
We had the three main financial spokesmen in open debate on our televisions the other night.
You know they are electioneering when our old friend is unveiled: money, we are told, will be saved by cutting inefficiencies and bureaucracies.
Ho Ho Ho! How many times have politicians said that!
The thing is, they say, trust us to cut out waste and we will still look after all those public bodies that the other guys will cut.
The Conservatives went even further – they are going to cut National Insurance rates and give the elderly loads more money for winter fuel and bus passes. It is all win with the Tories but, they tell us, unless you have us the end of the World will begin……help us David Cameron and George Osborne, we are small, stupid people who need you!
The Health and Education budgets won’t be touched at all – yeah sure! – and we will still keep on buying big bombs and missiles.
So don’t worry voters, the other lot will ruin the country but we will keep everything just great by doing a bit of trimming in the civil service.
What we all know of course, is that what will be done will be done and those well-worn phrases about cutting bureaucracy and waste are utterly worthless.
At least the present lot, the Labour Party, have managed to keep the country on course through the worst economic climate in living memory, even if nobody likes them. Alastair Darling, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, at least knows what the truth is when he looks into our account books.
We have a problem when it comes to voting. We don’t want what we have got and we don’t like the other guys either.
Once upon a time, many years ago, we used to have a governing party who had been in power for a bit too long who knew it was their time to go and we also had an opposition party who were hungry for power and full of new ideas.
Not any more! They are all worn out so gawd help us! They think we are stupid too but the stupid ones might not be us.