We’re off and the election campaign that has been going on anyway has started proper.

As soon as the parties agreed to back a December poll, the key messages were being pumped out.

They are the messages we will be bombarded with for the next six weeks.

Politicians and party strategists telling voters what they should be thinking and what is important.

The Prime Minister states the election is about ‘getting Brexit done’

The SNP Westminster leader said the party will fight the election on Scotland being able to chose a different future.

The Lib Dems want Brexit stopped and Labour wants a vote on a new negotiated deal on brexit.

All of the above are statements on what the politicians want from an election.

What about what the people want.

In the first few days all we have heard is Brexit, Section 30 for another independence referendum, a people’s vote, revoke Article 50.

So far in the context of the General Election no one at the top of political parties has given child poverty, homelessness, drug deaths or universal credit the prominence it deserves.

Soon they will be knocking on your door, stuffing leaflets though your letterbox and popping up on telly and in your newspapers telling you what they think.

They want to turn a General Election into a variety of proxy referendums.

Boris Johnson wants enough Conservative MPs to allow him a majority to get his deal though parliament and then leave the EU on or before January 31.

But what about the rest of the five year term we are electing MPs and therefore a government for.

What else will he do with that mandate.

Because you can be sure that he will use it to ram through everything and anything that come into his head, that the Conservatives want, but didn’t mention during the campaign.

People need to take charge of the agenda. What is important to you.

Is it ‘getting Brexit done’ or is it getting universal credit scrapped?

Is it getting a section 30 order for a second independence referendum or is it action to tackle the homelessness crisis that we can see going on all around us?

Is it a People’s Vote on Brexit or is it ending child poverty?

Hopefully one day the first part of those question will be resolved Brexit will finally be sorted one way or another and the independence referendum question will be settled.

Or maybe they won’t and we will be in a permanent state of paralysis and division.

One thing is for sure the second part of the questions will remain and will need attention they have not been getting as thousands of collective hours are spent arguing over constitutional issues.

This week there was a Westminster Hall debate on Child Poverty in Scotland.

Glasgow MPs took part and raised important questions. Paul Sweeney Labour MSP for Glasgow North East spoke of the hardships faced by many people in his area.

He spoke of people talking about ending their own lives because they can’t take any more.

Chris Stephens, SNP South west SNP MP, raised issues about universal credit payment delays and the two child tax credit limit pushing people into poverty, debt and despair.

Steven Kerr, Conservative MP for Stirling, claimed the current government was tackling poverty citing blunt figures about unemployment and numbers in employment.

It should be Boris Johnson and Jeremy Corbyn debating child poverty. Jo Swinson should be looking across her constituency boundary to Drumchapel and asking what needs to be done to end the need for food banks,

Nicola Sturgeon should be telling why child poverty in Scotland is increasing after 12 years of the SNP.

This election is not about what the politicians want. They can keep on wanting. It is time for the people to tell them what we want.