General Election 2015: Why the West Midlands is a key battleground

But today's the day that David Cameron goes to see the Queen and gets her to dissolve the institution ahead of the General Election on May 7.

Many people would be forgiven for thinking the election campaign started the best part of a year ago. You ain't seen nothing yet.

See also: LIVE coverage of each day of the campaign

With Parliament dissolved MPs are no longer MPs. They become PPCs - that's political speak for Prospective Parliamentary Candidates.

And now they aren't busy shouting at each other from the green benches of the Commons they will be up here, walking among 'real' people, knocking doors and trying to win votes.

Expect to hear the Tories bang on repeatedly about their 'long term economic plan', shoehorning it into every single comment on the NHS, immigration and anything else their opponents try to bash them over the heads with.

Watch out for Labour crowbarring in condemnation of cuts, the state of the NHS, zero hours contracts and the like, while rowing back a bit from the Tory tax bombshell they thought was coming until David Cameron ruled out a VAT increase.

Listen as Nick Clegg and the Liberal Democrats remind everyone they did more in the coalition than hike tuition fees and how they were the ones who wanted to raise the income tax threshold.

And wait with baited breath for yet more UKIP hopefuls or campaigners to say or write something about race or immigration on Facebook that makes them sound like they were trying to ring a policeman in the 1960s when the phone box dematerialised and dropped them in the middle of 21st century England.

Wolverhampton South West, Conservative, majority 691

Walsall North, Labour, majority 990

Walsall South, Labour, majority 1,755

Halesowen and Rowley Regis, Conservative, majority 2,023

Wolverhampton North East, Labour, majority 2,484

Wyre Forest, Conservative, majority 2,643

Cannock Chase, Cons, majority 3,195

Dudley South, Conservative, majority 3,856

Stourbridge, Conservative, majority 5,164

Stafford, Conservative, majority 5,460

The Greens will probably do something funny as well if their leader can remember what she was trying to talk about.

I think I've covered all the bases there and been scathing about all of them, haven't I? I mean, there's the SNP too but given that they're probably going to be the real winners of the election I don't want to upset my new overlords in Edinburgh.

The West Midlands is a big deal, at least for the next 38 days.

It contains some of the key battleground seats that Labour either lost to the Tories in 2010 or clung on by skin of their teeth.

The Prime Minister points to the i54 in Wolverhampton, with its Jaguar Land Rover engine plant, as proof his plans are working while he invokes the scandal at Stafford Hospital to claim Labour cannot be trusted on the NHS.

Labour uses the controversial downgrade of the same hospital to say the same about the Tories.

Even before the election campaign began, people have been hardly able to move in Cannock Chase without bumping in George Osborne, Ed Balls, Ed Miliband, Boris Johnson or David Cameron.

The seat is very much up for grabs given that the Tory MP Aidan Burley, who won it off Labour with the biggest swing in the country, decided it would be a good idea to go on a stag party in the French Alps where the groom was wearing a Nazi uniform, the criticism for which followed his career ever since like a goose-stepping Greyfriars Bobby.

UKIP has been doing well in the constituency too, winning seats on the district council, and if it translates into votes on May 7 it will certainly skew the result.

The Tories will be hoping that the so-far very sensible businesswoman Amanda Milling can keep the voters who might otherwise have gone to UKIP's Grahame Wiggin or Labour's Janos Toth.

Writs will be issued for elections in the UK's 650 constituencies.

Thursday, April 2: First of the televised leaders' debate. ITV will host it with anchor Julie Etchingham. It will feature seven party leaders – Conservative David Cameron, Labour's Ed Miliband, Liberal Democrat Nick Clegg, UKIP's Nigel Farage, the SNP's Nicola Sturgeon, The Greens' Natalie Bennett and Plaid Cymru's Leanne Wood.

Thursday, April 9: Candidate nomination papers deadline. Candidates have until 4pm to either deliver their nomination papers or withdraw.

Thursday, April 16: The leaders of Labour, UKIP, the SNP, the Greens and Plaid Cymru will debate on the BBC, moderated by David Dimbleby.

Monday, April 20: Deadline for voters to register themselves with their local councils. It is now the responsibility of the individual rather than one person in the household.

Tuesday, April 21: Deadline for applying for postal vote is 5pm.

Tuesday, April 28: Deadline for proxy vote applications, except for emergencies, is 5pm.

Thursday, April 30: Mr Cameron, Mr Miliband and Mr Clegg will be quizzed separately by the audience in a Question Time special on BBC1, hosted by Mr Dimbleby.

Thursday, May 7: Polling day. Polling booths open between 7am and 10pm. Counting of votes will begin when the polls close. The Express & Star will have reporters at all counts in our region giving live updates through the night on expressandstar.com

Friday, May 8: Expect results in the early hours of the morning. The Express & Star will be on sale with results from all the counts. In the afternoon, councils will begin counting the results of the local elections and parish council elections as well.

Saturday, May 9 onwards: Expect the prospect of horse trading and back room deals between party leaders as the opinion polls suggest no-one is on course to win an outright majority. With many party leaders ruling out another coalition, the make up of the next Government could be very complicated and very messy.

Expect also to see plenty of activity in Wolverhampton South West. This constituency made history in 2010 when British Asian candidate Paul Uppal became a Conservative MP in Enoch Powell's old seat, by the same slender 691 majority that the man who would go on to deliver the so-called 'Rivers of Blood' speech won in his first election.

Mr Uppal will want history to repeat itself a little and for his majority to increase. His Labour opponent Rob Marris has other ideas. He was the MP Mr Uppal defeated last time around and he wants his seat back.

Dudley North, as the most marginal seat in the Black Country, was always going to be interesting. It became fascinating last week when the Tory candidate, Afzal Amin, pulled out after it was revealed he had met with the English Defence League and discussed the prospect of them calling and then cancelling a march against a planned £18 million mosque. The big question here will be whether emergency replacement candidate Les Jones can make up the lost ground or whether the Tory vote will go elsewhere. If it goes to UKIP, then MEP Bill Etheridge might well be packing up in Brussels for a job in Westminster in place of Labour's Ian Austin, whose majority stands at just 649. But Dudley South, Stourbridge and Halesowen and Rowley Regis all changed hands to the Tories last time and will be vital targets for anyone trying to govern the country.

The one to watch in Walsall will be Walsall North, where the long serving Labour MP David Winnick defends a 990 majority. Tory challenger Douglas Hansen-Luke has been giving it both barrels and from the campaigns he has organised, the contacts he has made and the work he has done on the ground he's already behaving like an elected member. Whether he convinces the voters who did not back David Cameron in 2010 that it's worth doing so now, as well as wins back those who dumped the Tories leading Walsall Council, we will have to wait and see. But UKIP has also been putting in a strong performance in Walsall at local elections.

In Sandwell, where Labour holds control of the council with an unshakeable iron fist of 70 out of 72 councillors, it would have to be a heck of a bad night for Ed Miliband to lose one of his MPs in the borough.

Tory support has been in freefall for years and UKIP only won one council seat last year. Don't expect any upsets in West Bromwich East, West Bromwich West or Warley. But keep an eye on the bright young Tories cutting their electoral teeth on these seats. They might well pop up again in 2020.

For now, however, get ready to be mobbed by ministers, sick of the sight of soap boxes and deluged with debates.

The General Election game is afoot.