Ever since man discovered he had a penchant for war, there has been rivalry
between the services. This is all to do with pride and tribalism and,
generally speaking, it’s a good thing.
However, when a leaked e-mail from an army officer describes the RAF as
“utterly, utterly useless”, you get the distinct impression that this is far
beyond good-natured teasing. You have visions of him lying in a ditch
desperately calling for air support and hearing nothing over the radio but
the sound of a Harrier’s starter motor whirring uselessly.
The problem, of course, has nothing to do with the people who fly or service
the planes. And everything to do with those grinning buffoons in Westminster
who’ve spent the past five years unable to see what’s going on due to the
fact they’re all deep inside George Bush’s bottom.
You read about billions being shaved from the budget and squadrons being
merged to cut costs and, frankly, it doesn’t mean anything at all. Not when
you’ve just been startled out of your skin by a Tornado that has flown
between your chimney pots at 4m knots.
However, I’ve done a bit of checking and it seems the RAF can field five
strike attack squadrons that must share 60 Tornados. Then there are the
offensive squadrons, which have 26 Harriers and some Jaguars, which may as
well be Sopwith Camels. And that’s it.
In total, with the air defence Tornados, they have just 150 aeroplanes that
can actually do fighting. The Luftwaffe has more than twice that. So do the
cheese-eating surrender monkeys. In an air war we’d struggle to beat the
Bubbles. Of course 150 fighting planes is fine when all we have to worry
about are a handful of mad Irishmen, but since Mr Blair realised that his
retirement fund relied on being popular in the land of the brave, we’re now
fighting what seems like half the world.
It is an extraordinary scandal and what makes it just so shiversomely hideous
is that Blair and Brown and all the other useless fools who preside over our
wellbeing know full well they can get away with it.
Strip the NHS of funds and pretty soon you’ll have a bunch of nurses on
television sobbing. Decimate the fire brigade and immediately the streets
will be full of men in donkey jackets, standing round braziers. But the
forces? You can squeeze their gonads until their eyes pop out and still they
won’t moan.
When asked recently if the British Army could cope, its new top man General
Sir Richard Dannatt replied: “Just”. He can’t come out and say: “Are you
joking?” Because this is not the army way. Even though he’s waging war on
two fronts using US helicopters that shoot themselves down and Sea Kings
that have a top speed of four if it gets hotter than 57C — which it does in
Iraq, a lot — he still has to stiffen his upper lip and tell the world that
everything is tickety boo.
It’s not just the top brass, either. Back at home, quietly, soldiers may tell
their loved ones that things are pretty bleak. But have you ever heard one
say so publicly? Were they at the Trades Union Congress in their apple-green
short-sleeved nylon shirts banging on the tables demanding more money and
better equipment? No they weren’t. They were out there, far from the
television cameras, in a shit-awful part of Afghanistan fighting with
pointed sticks.
I do hope Blair can sleep easily at night knowing that his lecture tour
pension fund is being paid for by the blood of a thousand British soldiers
and airmen. And I hope, too, he realises that if the RAF really is “utterly,
utterly useless”, it’s all his fault.
It makes you wonder how on earth a bona fide lunatic managed to achieve such a
position of power and influence but, actually, lunacy these days is all
around us. It sits in the editor’s chair at the Daily Mail. It
runs the United States. And I found a shining example of it only the other
day as I stopped in a petrol station to fuel an Audi Q7.
“Ooh,” said the man at the next pump, “I’ve just ordered one of those. It
comes next week. What do you think?” I could have been kind. I could have
made his day. But I wasn’t in the mood, so I told him straight: “It’s one of
the three worst cars I’ve ever driven.”
Well, he was flabbergasted. But not as flabbergasted as me when he went on to
say that he was buying the Audi as a replacement for his Aston Martin V8
Vantage, which had broken down.
I see. So you bought an Aston and you were “surprised” when it wasn’t quite as
reliable as granite. That makes you mad. And now you’ve replaced it with
something that could be nailed to the side of a cathedral to ward off evil
spirits. That makes you a swivel-eyed loony.
I first encountered this gargoyle of a car earlier in the year as we were
filming the Top Gear winter olympics, and though it felt pretty nasty
I decided to withhold judgment, since doing a biathlon in a car isn’t
terribly representative of how it might be used in, say, Driffield.
Well, I’ve now used it in London, Bedfordshire, Northamptonshire, Oxfordshire,
Surrey and Hampshire and can reveal it’s no better in any of these places
either. It’s far too big to fit comfortably on any road other than an
American interstate, but inside it’s surprisingly cramped. Think of it as an
Aga. As big as a post office van but stumped when presented with a Christmas
turkey.
Certainly you get a lot more room in a cheaper and much better looking Volvo
XC90. You get more of everything even in the new Ford S-Max.
And then there’s the question of “feel”. The Q7 feels just like a normal Audi.
And that’s fine in a normal Audi. But it’s a big SUV and it should give off
a sense that the Tonka toy exterior styling is in some way replicated on the
inside, so that when your children fight and bite and kick, none of the
fixtures and fittings will be damaged.
The Q7 really is “utterly, utterly useless” and I was all set to keep on
kicking it until all the available space on these pages was used up. But
then, lo and behold, I was presented with a car that is even worse. The
Chrysler 300C diesel estate.
Worryingly, it looks rather good. There’s a huge radiator grille that puts you
in mind of a Bentley Arnage, and the squared-off muscly body sits on tall
tyres that hint at not only a great deal of power but a comfy, cosseting
ride. A decent salesman could make a fairly good fist of whipping up your
enthusiasm on the inside as well. The back seats fold down easily, the load
opening at the back is cavernous, there’s a separate storage area under the
boot floor away from muddy paws, and there’s lots of standard equipment.
For £27,275 this looks like the bargain of the century and a brief test drive
will do little to dispel that notion. The diesel engine is so unclattery
that I had to get out to check the badge. And despite the size it’s terribly
easy to drive. The only thing that might put you off is the limited rear
visibility, but apart from this you’d be hard pressed to find anything
wrong. Don’t worry, though. I have. Lots.
You need to think of this car as one of those home-brand council house stereos
that you find in department stores. It’s cheap, but it’s cheap for a reason,
which becomes abundantly clear when you turn it on. It’s rubbish. So it goes
with the 300C. Chrysler, which is owned by Mercedes these days, is at pains
to point out that this car is not — as I’ve previously claimed — based on
the old Mercedes E-class. They say they considered this idea but dismissed
it.
Pity. Basing it on a well-proven car would have been a better idea than basing
it on a crème brûlée. God, it’s a wallowy old hector. You have absolutely no
sense that you’re connected to the road in any way. Imagine, somehow,
fitting an engine to your duvet and you start to get the picture. Of course
this might not bother you but the ride comfort will. Despite the
wallow-matic suspension and the tall tyres, it crashes and jolts where a
normal, proper European car glides and hangs on.
Then there’s the sat nav screen, which is so bright it’s like driving into a
second world war searchlight, and the difficulty you’ll have while parking
and the sheer ghastliness of the half-timbered steering wheel.
Yes, it’s cheap, but so’s the RAF these days. And that doesn’t work either.
