This week saw what must be one of the last remaining acts of a desperate Prime Minister. Mr Sunak gave a speech on Monday that suggests he knows that he is in trouble.

He resorted to fear tactics, claiming that we’re facing ‘the most dangerous years we’ve ever known’, adding that the only way to keep us safe was to re-elect a Conservative government.

I had a sense of having heard this somewhere before. I later read suggestions from Lord David Cameron that Britain’s security would be 'on the ballot paper'. I had thought it sounded familiar. David Cameron is accused of having pedalled Project Fear once before. How audacious!

During the last decade, we’ve seen our Armed Forces hollowed out, with the Army falling to its smallest size since the Napoleonic Wars. We’ve seen our public services eroded, with NHS dentistry in a state of severe decay and waiting lists for operations soaring. Above all, we’ve seen sleaze and scandals eroding trust in our political institutions in a way that seems like a complete departure from times - even in my lifetime - when these same institutions were revered.

By seeking to gloss over this record of failure and suggest instead that there is worse to come, the Prime Minister has shown that he has nothing left to offer our great country except fear of something worse. This Conservative Government’s record is one of crisis and decline – and none of Mr Sunak’s posturing will change that.

The irony of Sunak’s speech was that it came on the same day that the Conservative Party was reported to the Information Commissioner for leaking hundreds of Conservative party members’ email addresses. If they cannot even protect the details of their own members, how can we trust them to protect our country?

The Iraq War demonstrated to us what happens when we have Conservative MPs who act as Westminster’s delegates to Devon. They meekly followed orders passed down by party bosses, who supported Blair’s foreign adventures dreamed up in London. The alternative is that we elect hardworking Liberal Democrat MPs to fight our corner and make the voices of East Devon’s rural towns and villages heard in the corridors of power.

I am fighting to demand better from Westminster for rural Devon. If you believe in that brighter future too, then get involved and help us relegate this incompetent Government to the backbenches – so they can have some time to reflect on what has gone on in recent years.