I normally love following elections, but I would feel a terrible sense of dread about the next one

In normal times the prospect of a general election quickens the pulse of any journalist or politico. Especially one of those rare dramatic elections that are called in or around a period of national crisis. The gaffes! The debates! The punches! Lord Buckethead! The suspense as the results trickle in!

The snap election of 2017 was one such event, long denied by Downing Street and launched to some surprise. The long campaign was even better, with the quite astonishing success of Jeremy Corbyn, or, more accurately, Theresa May’s dismal campaign pushing us to the hung parliament that no one expected. Elections in the 1970s were like this too – about “who governs Britain?” In those days it was a grim question about the power of the trade unions. Nowadays it has a satirical edge.

I even enjoy the boring elections – can anyone remember 2001?

This time, though, I feel a terrible sense of dread about the British general election of 2019 – the fourth inside a decade.

This is for the simple reason that it will be so very unsatisfactory. An odd way of seeing it, but I hope you know what I mean. Supposedly designed to end the perplexing and exhausting national debate about Europe, yet it will do no such thing. It will, as Sir John Curtice says, yield us another hung parliament. Asking the public a question about Europe is fine, but you need a referendum, not a general election, to do so. We will be back, give or take a few seats, where we started.

I don’t suffer from fatigue about Brexit. I happen to think parliament is doing its job. I also think the people will do theirs and decide their own future. To do so the MPs will needs to ask them the appropriate question in the appropriate forum. After all, we have in effect been running a national referendum debate on Brexit for months now.

As for a general election I vote for Brenda from Bristol – “You’re joking! Not another one!”

Yours,

Sean O’Grady

Associate editor