What car best represents the big society?
Well first of all it has to be big. At least a seven seater to allow for some social interaction between the passengers. Some jokes. Some singing on long journeys and some testing and intense games of i-spy.
So a Landrover Discovery might work plus if needed you don't need to stay on the road and can head off into some uncharted bits of as yet undiscovered landscape.
A two seat MG Roadster would be hopeless, not because Jeremy Clarkson wouldn't approve, but because it would fail completely as far as sociability, singing and games of i spy go.
My own personal favourite car was the Alfa Romeo Guilietta which was so wonderful and sexy and head turning, that, as the driver I kept turning my head to see my reflection in shop windows. It was once parked outside a Little Chef on the A38 and a police car passed and slowed down just to make sure we weren't speeding.
But it wasn't a big society car, in fact it was probably nearer to being the motoring equivalent of Bunga Bunga and certainly i spy would have not been an appropriate game.
Once in America we were being driven around Washington DC when a Guilietta overtook the car we were in, a very staid, four door sedan, and our driver muttered 'drug dealers, that's a drug dealers car', so we kept the fact that we owned one a secret.
What car does Mr Cameron drive I wonder?
He flies by easyjet and Ryan Air so what car does he leave in the Airport Car Park?
I'm sure that his official bullet proof Prime Ministerial car is fine when he is being Prime Minister but does he favour the Ford Galaxy, much beloved of Mr Blair or is he more of a Mondeo Man?
I have had a lot of cars, my favourite was a DKW Saxomat, it was a three cylinder two stroke with a centrifugal clutch which operated electrically, the acceleration was awesome and it had a banshee like wail as it sped away from traffic lights, which scared horses, pensioners and very young children. DKW was the precursor of Audi, it had the four rings on the radiator grill, sadly the factory was landlocked in the former East Germany and renamed Wartburg. Oops.
But it was not very socially responsible and could not be properly described as a big society car.
The bright red Ford Cortina wouldn't start on Sundays, no good for a Vicar who relied on it to get to church on time.
A 1938 Morris Eight was just eccentric really.
The Mini was fun.
The BMW was reliable, I once drove it to Leipzig at a hundred miles and hour whilst listening to Kraftwerk but had to keep pulling over to let Mercedes fly past on the Autobahns. I guess that had a big society feel to it and it was interesting visiting the former Democratic Republic. After all the idea of a big society is more socialist than capitalist which is why it is puzzling to hear it promoted in dulcet tory tones although Tone's dulcet voice had a suspiciously Tory overtone to it too.
No, the latest leak suggests apparently that the car that best reflects the big society is a Volvo, safe and reliable and trustworthy.
Apparently this was a reflection of the image that the public had of Mr Brown before the election he lost.
So now all that the Labour Party has to do is recover the papers that they lost, review the strategy and begin the process of presenting their new image.
My advice would be to drop the Volvo metaphor, or even better find some photographs of the coalition leadership parking their Volvo's in airport car parks, and get Mr. Milliband a car that reflects speed, authority, dignity, accomplishment and reliability.
A new car for the future of the big society under a revamped, renewed, energy efficient, people friendly, Labour party has to be a Hybrid Stretched Limo ............
Well first of all it has to be big. At least a seven seater to allow for some social interaction between the passengers. Some jokes. Some singing on long journeys and some testing and intense games of i-spy.
So a Landrover Discovery might work plus if needed you don't need to stay on the road and can head off into some uncharted bits of as yet undiscovered landscape.
A two seat MG Roadster would be hopeless, not because Jeremy Clarkson wouldn't approve, but because it would fail completely as far as sociability, singing and games of i spy go.
My own personal favourite car was the Alfa Romeo Guilietta which was so wonderful and sexy and head turning, that, as the driver I kept turning my head to see my reflection in shop windows. It was once parked outside a Little Chef on the A38 and a police car passed and slowed down just to make sure we weren't speeding.
But it wasn't a big society car, in fact it was probably nearer to being the motoring equivalent of Bunga Bunga and certainly i spy would have not been an appropriate game.
Once in America we were being driven around Washington DC when a Guilietta overtook the car we were in, a very staid, four door sedan, and our driver muttered 'drug dealers, that's a drug dealers car', so we kept the fact that we owned one a secret.
What car does Mr Cameron drive I wonder?
He flies by easyjet and Ryan Air so what car does he leave in the Airport Car Park?
I'm sure that his official bullet proof Prime Ministerial car is fine when he is being Prime Minister but does he favour the Ford Galaxy, much beloved of Mr Blair or is he more of a Mondeo Man?
I have had a lot of cars, my favourite was a DKW Saxomat, it was a three cylinder two stroke with a centrifugal clutch which operated electrically, the acceleration was awesome and it had a banshee like wail as it sped away from traffic lights, which scared horses, pensioners and very young children. DKW was the precursor of Audi, it had the four rings on the radiator grill, sadly the factory was landlocked in the former East Germany and renamed Wartburg. Oops.
But it was not very socially responsible and could not be properly described as a big society car.
The bright red Ford Cortina wouldn't start on Sundays, no good for a Vicar who relied on it to get to church on time.
A 1938 Morris Eight was just eccentric really.
The Mini was fun.
The BMW was reliable, I once drove it to Leipzig at a hundred miles and hour whilst listening to Kraftwerk but had to keep pulling over to let Mercedes fly past on the Autobahns. I guess that had a big society feel to it and it was interesting visiting the former Democratic Republic. After all the idea of a big society is more socialist than capitalist which is why it is puzzling to hear it promoted in dulcet tory tones although Tone's dulcet voice had a suspiciously Tory overtone to it too.
No, the latest leak suggests apparently that the car that best reflects the big society is a Volvo, safe and reliable and trustworthy.
Apparently this was a reflection of the image that the public had of Mr Brown before the election he lost.
So now all that the Labour Party has to do is recover the papers that they lost, review the strategy and begin the process of presenting their new image.
My advice would be to drop the Volvo metaphor, or even better find some photographs of the coalition leadership parking their Volvo's in airport car parks, and get Mr. Milliband a car that reflects speed, authority, dignity, accomplishment and reliability.
A new car for the future of the big society under a revamped, renewed, energy efficient, people friendly, Labour party has to be a Hybrid Stretched Limo ............
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