Sir Ian Blair, the preposterous London police chief, said recently that the
newspapers whipped up far too much of a hullabaloo about the murder of Soham
schoolgirls Jessica Chapman and Holly Wells. And that nowhere near as much
coverage is given when some poor black kid is killed. Obviously the case of
10-year-old Damilola Taylor must have slipped his mind. And Stephen
Lawrence, for that matter.
Anyway, the ginger idiot announced the very next day that the best thing he
can do to bring peace and tranquillity to the streets of the nation is barge
into middle-class executive homes and bust everyone for taking cocaine. For
their own good? I should cocoa. According to Blair, it’s for the good of
people in the “developing world”, who somehow have their legs blown off
every time someone in Chelsea buys a gram.
The message here is simple. Sir Ian is prepared to ignore the Turkish heroin
smugglers and Albanian people traffickers in his quest to rid the capital of
hideous middle-class white people. He hates their children, their
institutionalised racism, their la-di-da accents, their private schools and
their weekend cottages, and if they’re going to liven up a Saturday night
with some marching powder he’ll be on hand to make sure their Volvos are
confiscated.
Unfortunately, if you’re middle class you may as well take cocaine and spend
Saturday night talking to yourself because there’s bugger all else to do.
You can’t go into town because it’s been overrun with drunks and all the
police are too busy filling in hazard assessment forms to do anything about
it. And you can’t stay at home because there’s nothing you want to watch on
the box.
This is because the Islingtonites who run television these days don’t really
like the middle classes either. I was told the other day by a senior bod in
the industry not to use the phrase “dinner party” on Top Gear
because it’s “elitist”. For the same reason I was told by a director last
month it’d be best if I didn’t mention my children’s nanny. I gave him one
of my special hard stares.
Interestingly, however, whenever a middle-class programme is shown on
television, and I’m thinking here of Have I Got News for You,
or Who Do You Think You Are?, the viewing figures shoot through the
roof. And everyone in the TV business calls hurried meetings so they can
work out why.
“We put out a programme last week about a disabled Somali woman whose benefit
cheques have been stopped and no one watched that. So why did 5m tune in to
see Stephen Fry wandering around some sugar beet fields in Suffolk?” I
wonder. Could it have something to do with the 40m middle-class people in
Britain who are so starved of entertainment they’ll tune in to anything with
proper vowel sounds? No, really. How well do you think What Not to Wear
would have gone down if it had been presented by two fat slappers for whom
the letter H was as difficult to master as that clicking sound made by
African bushmen? No one likes a thicko to sit in the corner of their front
room, which is why the people who do well in that celebrity jungle thing are
usually well spoken and bright. Tara P-T. Tony Blackburn. And, of course,
Carol Thatcher. Then there was Jack Dee, who won the first Celebrity Big
Brother, a result that plainly alarmed the producers so much they
subsequently ensured that all future contestants aren’t even middlebrow,
leave alone middle class. The last lot, so far as I can tell, were
essentially zoo animals.
And who can forget the moment when Judith Keppel, the woman from Fulham, was
first to scoop a million out of Chris Tarrant’s pocket. You could almost
hear the Blair brothers screaming: “Aaaargh. Why couldn’t it have been
someone with one leg from the Taliban?” There’s a quiet war being waged
against the middle classes. All this talk, for instance, about what might be
done to stop people buying second homes in the country: you think that’s
because of the locals being priced out of the market? Really? So how come no
one’s bothered about kids in the inner city who can’t afford to get on the
property ladder either? No, I’m afraid second homes are under attack for the
same reason they decided to save the fox. It’s payback for Judith Keppel.
And Arthur Scargill.
You may think the reason people spit at 4x4s these days has something to do
with Greenland’s blanket of ice. It isn’t. It’s because you’re well off. And
that’s not allowed.
So, what’s to be done if you want a nice car but don’t want to drive through a
blizzard of phlegm every time you go to the shops? Well, obviously you could
buy a van, or a Hyundai, but what we’re really after here is a cheap car
that doesn’t feel it. And that leaves us with a choice of one. The Mini.
The lovely thing about the new Mini is the very same lovely thing about the
old Mini. When one goes by you have no idea what sort of person is at the
wheel. It is hard to think of any product that is quite so classless.
Branston Pickle, maybe, but that’s about it.
So what about the convertible version? Well even though it’s been around for
18 months I’ve never driven one. However, having written about the new Mazda
MX-5 last week I thought I’d give it a go.
You see, the Mazda was wonderful; a proper, charming and fun little sports
car, but that in itself creates problems. Because it also sounds and feels
like a sports car when you’re on the motorway, and it’s a Tuesday, and it’s
a bit cold, and you just want to get home. That’s not a criticism so much as
an observation. But it is the reason I thought I’d try the drop-head Mini —
to see whether it’s a sports car without the sports car drawbacks.
Don’t laugh. Beneath the veneer of cool-this and brushed-aluminium-that the
hard-top Mini has a properly good little chassis. The steering, the turn-in
and what happens when you exceed the available grip are all excellent. And
it’s the same story with the rag top. Yes, there’s a whiff of dreaded
scuttle shake, that awful sense the front and the back are connected with
nothing more than spit and Kleenex, but for the most part this is a little
car that laps up the bends and snorts rortily onto the straights.
Sure, unlike the Mazda it doesn’t have rear-wheel drive, and it’s a bit of a
fatty so the straightforward 1.6 litre engine struggles a bit, but here’s
the good part. When it’s cold and wet and you just want to listen to the
radio it’s fairly quiet and comfortable. Providing you don’t spec it up with
the big wheels.
What we have here, then, is a fun, comfortable and, providing you don’t spec
it up with anything at all, extremely well priced car that’s so classless it
could drive through Ian Blair’s legs and he wouldn’t even notice.
There are, however, two things that you really ought to consider. First of
all, while it bills itself as a four seater, there is no legroom in the back
at all. And the boot is barely big enough for the gram of coke you can’t buy
any more. But the worst thing is the rear visibility.
Of course this is always an issue in a soft-top car — even the Mazda isn’t all
that easy to see out of — but driving the Mini is like driving with a box on
your head. For parking you need to use the force. And when pulling out of
oblique junctions, might I suggest you get rubbing those rosaries.
I certainly don’t recommend having a bump of any kind, either, because if the
police come and find you to be in possession of the H sound, and a Harvey
Nicks credit card, you’ll be playing hunt the soap in Strangeways from now
till the end of time.
VITAL STATISTICS
Model Mini Cooper S Convertible
Engine 1598cc, four cylinders
Power 170bhp @ 6000rpm
Torque 162 lb ft @ 4000rpm
Transmission Six-speed manual
Fuel 32.1mpg (combined cycle)
CO2 211g/km
Acceleration 0-62mph: 7.4sec
Top speed 134mph
Price £17,935
Rating 3/5
Verdict A maverick motor for the middle classes
