They're off! The starting pistol has been fired in the political steeplechase and already people are complaining it is a one-horse race.

It's hard to find anyone to bet against Labour, who won this race the last time it was held four years ago, although from a distance it is hard to spot if the colours of jockey Tony Blair are still red. Second favourites are the Tories with William Hague, a newcomer, in the saddle. And a long way behind are the Lib Dems whose rider, Charles Kennedy, seems to be busy enjoying a fag at the starting line.

Enough of this racing analogy. It would be tedious to keep going for a whole column. But, in covering elections since 1964, I can never remember one in which the governing party has entered the campaign with such a commanding lead or one which has been trailed for so long.

The postponement for five weeks of the contest through foot-and-mouth disease means we are already more or less half way through the campaign and already punters are moaning and groaning about it. It will seem interminable by the time June 7 finally arrives.

Reforms are badly needed by whoever gets into Downing Street on that day. Fixed-term Parliaments lasting four years would be much better than all the uncertainty over the election date. In the past, choosing the time has been considered to be an advantage for the Prime Minister, but it certainly wasn't this year.

It might also be worth looking at shortening the length of the campaign. Few minds are changed in the weeks before an election but many people are put off politics for life by mind-numbing public arguments. Most people would be happy with a campaign of one or two weeks at most.

Further restrictions on what parties could spend would solve most of their money problems and prevent punters from being assailed by political claptrap from billboards all over the country. The Prime Minister who abolished party political broadcasts would also be feted by a grateful nation.

In Sussex, this will not be the dullest election ever. That honour was reserved for those between 1979 and 1992 when Tories won every single seat in the county, mostly with enormous majorities. This one-party rule was also bad for democracy when Labour and the Lib Dems with respectable followings could not come near winning.

Thanks to the Labour national landslide last time we now have several splashes of red on the political map plus the Lib Dem MP Norman Baker in Lewes. It will be intriguing to see if Tories can win any of these seats back.

While no one expects seats such as Wealden or Chichester to be lost by Conservatives, the Lib Dems are making a determined efforts to gain others in the county, with Eastbourne being the most obvious prize.

Some opinion polls are predicting the Tories will fare even worse than last time, but I do not believe it. They are better prepared in seats that matter with strong local candidates, unlike one or two defeated 1997 contenders.

They may also be helped by apathy. If Labour voters believe the result is a forgone conclusion, they may not bother to trudge round to the polling station. That would be a shame because a general election is the one time when ordinary people have a chance to change history.

I hope the politicians do not manage to bore us all rigid during the campaign and that election night itself provides its traditional quota of shocks and surprises. But with the opinion poll leads and the quality of the debate so far, I doubt it.