Chris Mason: Why did Sunak decide to call a summer election?

The general elections are open – it will be your turn soon.

Power will soon drain from Westminster and those who currently hold it.

Politicians and their future – but above all the direction of the country – will be in your hands.

The Prime Minister announced the date outside Number 10, in the pouring rain and music blaring just outside the gates of Downing Street.

The song? An old hit from the 1990s, Things Can Only Get Better by D:Ream, which you may remember from the Tony Blair days.

For weeks, there had been growing expectations that the election would take place in the fall, which would give the prime minister at least two years in office and give the economic outlook a greater opportunity to improve.

A senior government official told me a few days ago “there’s no reason to get upset” as I participated in a conversation about the summer elections.

Yesterday I spent more than an hour talking with another high-ranking conservative, all of it building around a very long campaign that may still be rumbling on when the pumpkins are out and the sparklers are twinkling.

But not everyone is aware of something like this.

Decisions can be on a knife-edge – and some have pushed Rishi Sunak to leave early, among them Deputy Prime Minister Oliver Dowden.

Those who made this argument felt that things might not improve much and that the electorate’s perceived desire to have their say soon might risk deepening the Conservatives’ defeat if the meeting with the voters were repulsed.

In other words, do it now, otherwise the situation could get worse.

The Prime Minister can also claim that at least some of his objectives have been achieved, or appear to be on the verge of being achieved.

Of course, this does not depend solely on government actions.

But governments get blamed when the rate spikes, so it’s reasonable to expect them to try to siphon off some of the credit when the rate falls — and that has happened.

The overall economic picture also looks a little brighter.

Then there is the plan to send some asylum seekers to Rwanda.

This has not happened yet, but it appears that thefts could be imminent, perhaps even during the election campaign, although the claim that this will have a deterrent effect will not be verified until election day.

And so the campaign begins.

Conservatives keep saying: be careful what you wish for. Labor and others keep saying it’s time for change.

The result will be something, no matter what.

Either the opinion polls are broadly right and the ruling party will change, or they are wrong and it will be one of the biggest upheavals in recent years.