Sketch: The battle bus wheels go round and round...

And the digital archives of the lizards of the Press are toiling away amid countless searches.

Yes, the nominations for Parliamentary candidates are in. And the game begins to see what clangers they have dropped since the digital dawn, and who has been a twit on the Twittersphere.

Every off-colour (no pun intended) joke they have ever repeated or liked and out there buried amid the silicon chips will be hunted down and outed.

We will remember them.

There was an Englishman, a Scotsman and an Irishman ... Gotcha!

So take the list of candidates to be provisional. A few of those names will be weeded out by this modern vetting process. Those who survive will be those who have groomed themselves to be politicians from an early age, and have not ventured into lives of indiscretion.

A key general election question is, after the cull, whether the candidates who remain can yield a House of Commons which is any worse than the old lot.

You might not think that could be possible, and we can hope that there is some improvement in quality, but the answer has to be yes.

This is a general election called unexpectedly and in a hurry so there has been a lot of scrabbling about to field candidates, some of whom are entering the fray at short notice. I’m guessing that this means that some have not been able to do any local groundwork, and also that local parties and constituents have not had as much chance to examine them as they might have liked.

Perhaps there should be a multiple choice questionnaire as follows ...

Why do you want to become a Member of Parliament?

a. Because I’m a posh toff and posh toffs were born to rule.

b. The pay – and I’ve heard that you can really bump that up with all those juicy “outside interests”.

c. I wish to represent my constituents and champion their views and their interests in the House of Commons.

d. I wish to represent my constituents and put my views to the House of Commons on their behalf because the issues are too complex for them to grasp.

e. You’re looking to tick some sort of box and choosing me as candidate will tick it for you.

f. I’m a show-off and it’s a chance to appear on the telly.

Slogan

Moving on to this week in the general election campaign, and get the buses ready with those money-for-the-NHS slogans on the side.

Because if the Tories win, they will be loading them with cash and taking them to your local hospital. If Labour wins, they will have whole convoys of them loaded with cash heading for your local hospital.

The slogan on each bus will say something like: “Another £10 million for the NHS, brought to you by Jeremy Corbyn/Boris Johnson/Jo Swinson.”

If you believe Labour, Donald Trump will also be sending empty buses and hoping to drive off with the entire NHS.

One eye-catching promise was Labour’s pledge to give everybody free superfast broadband. Don’t buy that idea yet – if you hold out they might chuck in free Sky Movies and a discount on the sports channels.

And Non-standing Nigel made a decisive intervention in the campaign.

Jutting out his jaw, he surveyed the battlefield. And the master strategist issued his orders to his troops: Retreat!

This is typical fighting talk from Non-standing Nigel. Any thoughts that with the Brexit Party low down in the polls he was facing wipeout can be banished. No, indeed, this is a great victory.

You see, Nigel has already won. A humiliated Boris Johnson has bowed to his demands and mumbled something or other about a future free trade arrangement. Boris might even have given his word.

Poor Boris meanwhile tried to do the right thing by visiting flood-hit areas. It’s his own fault. If you are going to call an election in the autumn, with the polling to take place in winter, you run the risk of God playing a part in proceedings.

On his arrival he was greeted by calls along the lines of “what took you so long?”, but also “we don’t need politicians coming here for photo opportunities”.

He made a speech in which he didn’t use a word to describe Jeremy Corbyn which the media had thought he was going to use. It is a word I had to look up.