Whoever enters Downing Street needs to better understand farming communities - Sarah Todd

That buffoon from the Liberal Democrats, Sir Ed Davey, will have been dancing or swimming at some stunt or other in the kind of clothing anybody aged over 30 should never be seen in. Sir Keir Starmer will be looking robotically smug, Rishi Sunak will be trying his best but giving vibes of the lad at school who has had his dinner money stolen by the bigger boys and as for Nigel Farage. Well, he’s still the candidate this voter would most like to have a drink with down the village pub, but is that good enough reason to vote for him…?

It is a good job The Yorkshire Post employs proper political journalists to analyse the actual nitty gritty of elections, go through manifestos with a fine tooth comb and ask the questions we need to know the answers to. Hats off to them.

Rewinding to those early days as a trainee news reporter, 30-odd years ago - shorthand notebook in hand and newly purchased mac neatly belted - one of the first front page “splashes” ever worked on would be about a sitting MP promising to get the A64 dualled. The business community told this young scribe from the now-no-more Scarborough Evening News they were thrilled and hopeful. What a difference it would mean to their connectivity, bringing millions of pounds worth of knock-on benefits such as jobs and increased investment. What has happened since then? Diddly squat, that’s what. Has this notoriously snarled-up stretch of Yorkshire road ever been dualled? No, of course it hasn’t.

Whether, in the intervening years, the Prime Minister of the time has been either Conservative or Labour, anybody brave enough to set off from West Yorkshire to the East Coast still must factor in an eternity of ‘are we nearly there yet?’ The various MPs who have come and gone from within this road’s route over the last three decades never seem to have got so much as a pothole nearer.

But such despondency is no good, we all must go out and exercise the hard-won right to vote.

It’s just interesting to wonder whether or not the current system of one political party having overall control of everything is long overdue for an overhaul. Surely it should be possible to gather taskforces of the best and brightest brains in the country, whatever their political preferences? Those who have succeeded in various important fields - be it military, medical, business, finance, the law, agriculture - who have skills that could be used for the whole nation’s benefit. Now, maybe that would be too sensible.

Of course, King Charles must stay out of politics, but he has been such a visionary man in the way he surrounded himself during his long apprenticeship as Prince of Wales with experts and original thinkers. If he’s wanted to know something about anything - from architecture to religion - he has sought advice from far and wide. He has never appeared to be arrogant enough to either know it all himself or have the knowledge needed within his immediate team. It’s a mindset worth reflecting on.

His thinking on subjects such as the environment and conservation have, repeatedly, been proved to have been right all along.

His Royal Highness was once ridiculed for his open support of organic farming, for steadfastly supporting the preservation of native breeds of animals and his interest in regenerative agriculture, which is thinking about the soil in its own right rather than simply the crops that grow from it. Now, decades later, all three are mainstream.

Above all else has been the King’s support for grass-roots - pun intended - traditional farming families.

He paid for a report to investigate how livestock auction markets play a vital role in tackling social isolation among farmers and among the guests at his wedding were normal, everyday country people whose advice he had sought and friendship valued over the years.

If one wish could be granted, it would be that whoever steps over the threshold of 10 Downing Street on Friday familiarises themselves with The Royal Countryside Fund, brushes any chips off their shoulder and tries to understand that not all farms are owned by billionaire investors or the landed gentry.