Sometimes you might feel like waving politely and calling out, as courteously as you can manage: “Hello! Remember me? I’m still here.”

If you’re northern, that is.

If, as a northerner, you’re feeling neglected – deliberately overlooked, even - by the current suffocating brouhaha cutting off oxygen from what once was everyday life, you perhaps are tempted to issue a timid reminder of existence.

Is the north a foreign country? It might as well be. When men in suits make a lot of noise about big political pictures, they tend to assume every picture that matters hangs on a wall south of Oxford... where most of them studied.

Up here? Well, not so much to shout about, apparently.

Despite northerners having powered national prosperity for generations – until so much of its power was whipped away with no rhyme nor reason – we’re not figuring much in what’s curiously called critical discourse.

At best we must expect them to get around to us later, when the serious southern stuff has been sorted. At worst we’ll be seen as quaintly stoic yokel folk, who muddle along happily with our tattie pots, traybakes and what will be left of our farmers.

That BBC debate. My goodness, what a shambles. A cacophony of posh clatter with not a single question answered and not one suited gent – not even the one who removed his tie and practised pilates stretches in exasperation – shouting up for the north. The gathering that went before on the other side wasn’t much better.

To be fair to them all – and I can find no good reason why we should be just now – they’re not the only politicians forgetting that life goes on, after a fashion, up north while they jostle and posture for the highest Westminster office.

It’s a common enough oversight.

Northerners could be forgiven for suspecting that when they elect an MP of whichever party and always with the best of intentions, he or she - the duly elected - punches the air and utters privately: “Yes! That’s me out of here. Bring on the bright lights and expense account.”

Or is that too cruelly cynical? If so, I should apologise. I should but...

There’s really no need to detail our northern needs and worries. They’re well known. But to throw in a handful – public transport links, roads, jobs, hospitals, workable flood defences, farmers in terror of losing their businesses via Brexit, poverty and more councillors than any foreign country has a right to.

If you’re fortunate enough to be well-off – or better still, rich – and have time on your hands to play with noisy politics or have profoundly deep concerns for the fortunes of the good folk south of Oxford, you’ll probably consider these whinges nonsensical and will have looked away by now.

If you’re not well-heeled or wealthy; if you’re just about getting by - or not – you might be wondering where you figure in this continuing choreographed stage show. The back end of a pantomime horse is no great shakes but it would be a start.

Is it really so grim up north that we deserve such scant consideration? There was a Northern Powerhouse thing going on at one time. We, in Cumbria, had little to do with that of course. The north stopped at Leeds.

But even that has been forgotten now. Ne’er a mention anywhere. A Powerhouse cut. The lights have gone out.

Most of us northerners are pretty much politicked out by now. Who could blame anyone for seeking solace at the bottom of a bottle or under the duvet? That’s one way to deal with our resulting shaky mental health. Two, actually.

These wacky races have to be endured. The party of government needs a new leader (the last two having run away) and since the winner will end up being prime minister - for however long – we should take notice.

But maybe, just maybe, a shout-out for the north from at least one them might help us peep out from our duvets with a modicum of encouragement?

Which is why, politely, I’m waving hopefully from the north and calling with courtesy: “Hey, remember us? Brexit or no Brexit... we’re still here.”