A TV election drained of colour and spectacle

1. Has the election excited you? (1 point)

2. Have you been to a political meeting or rally? (3 points)

3. Do you have a poster in your window in support of your candidate or party? (3 points)

4. Have you attached a party rosette to your dog? (10 points)

5. Have you painted your pig in your party's colours? (20 points).

0-3 points. You are probably like the vast majority of the nation. No medication is required. Keep calm and carry on.

4-7 points. Give yourself a putty medal. There are not that many folk like you around these days. You are the political heartbeat of the country.

10 points or over. Get a life.

There used to be a message written in white paint or whitewash on the brickwork below the railway viaduct in Innage Road, Shifnal. In huge letters it said DON'T VOTE LABOUR. I'm guessing that it was daubed on the wall for one of the 1960s general elections. It was there for many, many years, and for all I know may still exist very faintly.

Whoever painted it felt passionately enough to paint it. They must have been really fired up. It was a visible sign of political activity and allegiance.

The 2017 general election is, by contrast, almost completely invisible, except on screen. Wander around the streets and housing estates, and there is often absolutely nothing to indicate there is an election. Residents used to have posters proudly displayed in windows saying "Vote for Bloggs." Now, I'm not saying there are none of these. I have seen one or two. One or two.

As far as I can tell, the same applies countrywide. Driving down to Berkshire the other day, the only thing that I saw to indicate there's an election on throughout the entire journey there and back - a journey which did include driving through towns and villages - was a UKIP banner in a field next to the M40.

That is not to say there is no political activity. Party canvassers have been out and about. I've seen them. Good on them.

And there are some who will no doubt point out that councils have killed off a lot of the postering of lamp posts and so on by passing bylaws which dictate that they all have to be taken down again after the election. It's easier not to put them up in the first place.

There have also been some question time-style events involving local Parliamentary candidates. Good on them too.

But overall the way we "consume" elections has changed.

Overwhelmingly it's all done on screens. Television, mostly, but also increasingly through social media.

That's why there was so much fuss about the TV debate in which Theresa May did not appear. We were conditioned to think that the debate was important and would discuss the issues. By all reports (I'm afraid I couldn't stand watching through the entire thing) it became a shouting match, a contrived and artificial occasion in which the politicians taking part all had their scripted and rehearsed points to get across.

Another factor may have drained the life out of this general election. Tony Blair is supposed to have said that we are all middle class now. But are we all floating voters now?

Your ordinary man or woman in the street is not openly and visibly declaring support for a political party because when it comes down to it, they do not support any of them. They pick and choose at election time, as if they are in a shop. There are those who have brand loyalty and will always buy in to a particular political party, but the tribalism of the past has dissipated.

This is why the opinion polls are so often getting it so wrong. They are not recording enduring political allegiance, but trying to predict the political weather.

Yes, Jeremy Corbyn has energised his supporters. His political rallies are like revival meetings. The point though is that they are his own supporters.

If you read about election campaigns in the past, you come to realise how much fun they used to be, and how boring and uneventful they have become.

There was, for instance, a by election in Oswestry in 1904 in which an agent for the Conservative candidate and his companions were "pelted with malodorous street refuse," there was street fighting, and political meetings were marked by disorder.

It was not unusual for animals to be pressed into action to show support for candidates by wearing rosettes and so on.

Now, I'm not advocating that any of those things be promoted to liven up modern elections.

But that they happened do show how much people cared.