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Mike Rutherford's column

While politicians debate banning the petrol engine, the Goodwood Revival meeting was revelling in its glorious heritage

Mike Rutherford

13th September 2007

Anybody with an interest in cars past, present and future had good reason to celebrate during the first weekend of September. It emerged on the Saturday night that John Prescott, former Secretary of State for Terrible Transport Trauma, had finally been rumbled, ordered to hand back the keys to ‘his’ taxpayer-funded Jaguar, ‘his’ plush £2million London home plus ‘his’ multi-million-pound country pile, Dorneywood near Burnham in Buckinghamshire.

The army of minders, chauffeurs, police officers, spin doctors, secretaries, chefs, bag-carriers, servants and shoe-shine boys that enabled him to evolve into the world’s leading Champagne Socialist for much of the last decade were snatched back, too. So was the elite protection squad.

He should now retire to Wales where he came from, allowing the rest of us to finally rid ourselves of the man and his phoney, cloth-capped Englishman credentials. How did Prescott of Prestatyn ever get away with it?

And are the Liberal Democrats determined to outdo Labour by trying to create an in-house transport specialist who’s even worse than Prescott? Apparently so. He’s a nobody and therefore doesn’t deserve a name check. But you deserve to be warned that, on behalf of his party, he says petrol-engined cars should be banned. Fool? Professional troublemaker? Evangelical ecomentalist? You tell me.

As Labour was expunging Prescott, the Lib Dems ensured 35 million users of petrol-engined cars would not vote for them and the Conservatives were maintaining their vow of silence on motoring, the Goodwood Revival meeting was in full swing in West Sussex, demonstrating to all that the car is here and here to stay, whether the politicians like it or not.

If you live a long way from upmarket Goodwood, or it’s out of your price range, forgive me for banging on about it, but it really is (like its sister event the Festival of Speed) one of the most important and significant automotive events on the planet. In fact, to call it a mere event doesn’t do it justice. It’s an occasion. And a very special one, as it celebrates all that’s been great about motoring and motor racing for the last 50 years or so, while looking forward to the future.

Britain spends billions of taxpayers’ pounds buying in heinously expensive overseas brands such as the Olympics and Tour de France to put us on the map, attract tourists and extract their money. Yet hundreds of thousands of generally wealthy national and international car nuts and other interested individuals and groups have spent colossal sums in and around Goodwood in recent years. And major motor corporations and race teams have queued up to support it.

Goodwood is home-grown, and has no grants, subsidies or National Lottery funding. It takes nothing from the authorities, but gives back a small fortune in taxes on earnings and other income. Along with the FA Cup Final at Wembley, the British Grand Prix at Silverstone and the World Superbikes at Brands Hatch, Goodwood’s Festival of Speed and Revival meetings are among the top 10 annual events in the British calendar.

The blinkered ruling Labour party and clueless Lib Dems haven’t yet worked this out. If the Tories do, and offer Goodwood the backing from UK PLC it deserves, they’ll win millions of motoring friends – and votes!

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