The girl to my right at dinner last night was a Liberal Democrat. So she sends
her children to school on the bus, dislikes titles and would like to get rid
of the Queen because she’s too expensive and the money would be better spent
on muesli.
But because a nation needs checks and balances, if you got rid of the Queen
you’d have to replace her with an elected president.
This went down well with the Liberalist. Of course the head of state should be
elected. It’s preposterous that we have to put up with a little old lady, or
a man who admits he talks to vegetables.
Doubtless she imagines that the president we’d elect would be a sage old chap
with a tweed jacket, the voice of Stewart Granger and the mind of Stephen
Fry. Every day he’d thumb through the red boxes sent down from parliament,
making wise observations and sensible suggestions.
But this wouldn’t happen. If you think about it, America had 250m candidates
for president and was offered a choice of two. A man with the stupidest hair
in Christendom and a blithering idiot who can’t talk properly. It would be
no different here.
At the next election there are three realistic options. An Old Etonian who’s a
communist, a dour slack-jawed Presbyterian, or an old-age pensioner. None
has the voice of Stewart Granger. None has the mind of Stephen Fry.
When Londoners were offered a mayor, the best possible option was a man with
out-of-control adenoids who keeps newts. And the only Labour candidate found
for the hard-up working-class voters in Dulwich and West Norwood turned out
to be a woman who doesn’t know whether she’s £350,000 in debt or £650,000 in
credit.
So what makes anyone think that the presidential candidates would be any
better? They wouldn’t. I can absolutely guarantee that the line-up would be
an ethnically, gender-fair assortment that would make the candidates on Big
Brother look sane and normal.
Or the job would go to a celebrity. No, really. Think about it. The good
people of the state of California elected an Austrian bodybuilder who spent
a career in film zipping through time and carrying very large logs.
Ordinarily he would have stood no chance. But because he was Arnold
Schwarzenegger he’s now in the hot seat, putting countless petty criminals
in a seat that’s even hotter.
So we might very well end up with Lenny Henry. He ticks all the boxes. Black.
Charming. Does loads for charity. And Dawn French would be a first-class
first lady.
Then there’s Paul McCartney. Obviously he isn’t black but he is a scouser and
that’s the next best thing. Better still, he’s internationally recognised, a
keen vegetarian, a non-smoker and he has a disabled wife.
Or how about Nicholas Witchell. He’s neither black nor a scouser but he is
ginger. And is famously disliked by the royals anyway.
Maybe we could put the candidates in a televised office of some kind and give
them matters of the day to discuss. We, the voters, would be able to see how
they’d handle the Iraq crisis and what they’d do about foxy woxy. And how
about using money from the voting phone lines to pay for the Olympic Games?
Or some kind of badger sanctuary? The only danger with this idea is that
you’d have to insert a token white middle-class person who, as we know from
previous Big Brothers and celebrity-in-the-jungle programmes, would win.
That’d mean we’d end up with Jack Dee as president (not such a bad idea) or
Tony Blackburn. Or Carol Thatcher.
I wonder, then, would an Irish person be allowed to enter? I’d like to think
so. It would make them feel better about the potatoes and Oliver Cromwell
and we could also see the global politico-heavyweights of Bob Geldof and
Bono enter the fray. Though I’m not sure we’d want a president named after a
dog biscuit.
Whatever, if we do open the doors to Irishists, it means we could vote for
Terry Wogan. Loved by millions. Cleverer than you might think. And after a
400-year career in broadcasting utterly unblemished by even a whiff of
scandal. I’d vote for him.
So we’d end up with President Terry, which would be cheaper, slightly, than
having a royal family. But would it be better? And that leads me,
surprisingly, on to the new Fiat Grande Punto.
At the moment, small hatchbacks with a hint of grunt for long motorway
journeys tend to cost around £10,000. A 1.4 litre Ford Fiesta Style is
£9,295, a 1.4 litre Renault Clio Dynamique is £10,250 and a 1.4 Toyota Yaris
T2 D-4D is £10,295. The new Fiat Grande Punto 1.4 Active Sport, on the other
hand, is just £8,495. That’s not far short of £2,000 less than the Toyota.
So is the Punto inferior in some way? Not in the looks department it isn’t.
By a very long way, this is the prettiest of all the superminis, and the
biggest. Which means it’s also the most spacious inside.
Things are looking good, and they get better because not only is there a big
boot, room in the back for children and space in the front for a small zoo,
the interior is also a zany and funky place to sit. My test car had a pale
blue dashboard, for instance.
Then there’s the quality of the thing. Italian cars were always a bit like
Italian tempers. Easily broken. But the new Punto has a substantial feel, a
sense that nothing’s going to fall off or come loose. The steering wheel is
so fat you can barely get your fingers round it and the gearlever is the
sort of thing that you’d expect to find on an American muscle car or a 19th
century railway locomotive.
Equipment? Again not bad. Certainly there are no obvious missing features that
would explain the low price, except perhaps the lack of a boot handle. To
open the tailgate you have to get into the car, push a button that is right
in the middle of the dash and them climb out again. That would drive me
properly nuts.
But not as nuts as the way the Fiat drives. Of course you don’t expect it to
be a ball of fire. But you do expect something to happen when you put your
foot down, especially when you’ve just pulled out to overtake a slow-moving
Rover 25 and there’s a truck coming the other way.
Sadly, however, nothing does happen. You see, this is not only the biggest car
in its class, but also by some margin it’s the least powerful. As a result,
0-62mph takes 13.2 sec. And that, in the car world, is an ice age. I could
forgive the Punto this shortfall if it had the usual Latin peppiness on
country roads. But it doesn’t. The electric power steering is too sharp and
the brakes too snatchy. It’s hard to make it flow. And the clutch bite is so
sudden I did stall a lot too.
Other problems? Well, the stereo system couldn’t receive Radio 2, the seatbelt
warning beep was loud enough to shatter wine glasses, and if you put a can
of drink in the cupholders and go round a corner it falls over. On balance,
then, I’d have to say the Renault Clio is the better car.
Pity, because I liked the Fiat. I really like the styling and my wife thought
it “sweet”. But when all’s said and done it’s a bit like the idea of having
Terry Wogan as president. Cheap. But not necessarily good value.
