At Full Chat

Apparently because I own and use a 4x4 in town and country, I'm an idiot. And if you drive a similar vehicle, you're almost certainly one, too. Who's making these charges against us? Labour politician Ken Livingstone, that's who. Yes, yes, I know he's only the Mayor of a comparatively small region of Britain called London. But what he does and says directly affects millions of people who either live, work in or visit the capital. It also indirectly affects those who never go near it. What happens in London today could, and very often does, happen in other towns tomorrow.

Auto Express Car Reviews

By Mike Rutherford

09th June 2004

Which is why I find it hard to believe that this man has taken a conscious decision to appear on a primetime TV show and refer to a large chunk of drivers as "idiots" just because they choose to own and use a certain type of car. Very much wearing his Labour hat, Livingstone said: "When I see a farmer going over rugged terrain in a four-wheel-drive I think, 'that's reasonable'. When you see somebody trying to manoeuvre it round the school gates, you have to think 'you are a complete idiot'."

So there we have it. Parents, grandparents, taxi drivers, chauffeurs, nannies, family friends, neighbours and indeed teachers are idiots when they go near the school gates in their all-wheel-drive vehicles. The Queen uses a Range Rover as her regular car. I saw her in it only the other day. Is Livingstone saying she's an idiot, too, if she dares to travel in it to a school opening or charity event?

First Blair's Government brands us criminals if we commit even the most trivial motoring misdemeanours. Now Tony's top man in his top city is pinning complete idiot tags on people who, for example, support British manufacturing and jobs by buying a Solihull-built Land Rover. Don't these politicians stop and think for a minute about the offence they cause to decent, law-abiding, hard working, taxpaying members of the public who have every right to spend their hard earned cash on 4x4s, or indeed any other type of vehicle that's legal to buy and use on the streets of Britain?

And don't these same authority figures ever consider for a minute that a family might run a 4x4 as a truly multi-purpose vehicle which could in the course of a typical day be employed in off-road work, carrying the groceries, lugging heavy kit or equipment or transporting colleagues? Then at the end of the day, it might collect Little Johnny from the school gates, the youth club, the piano teacher's house or wherever?

According to Livingstone, I am indeed one of those idiots. And if I take the kids to the cinema, the shops, the martial arts club, the foreign language school or anywhere else en route home, I'm presumably guilty of further idiotic behaviour. If anybody ever tries to tell me that Britain has the greatest democratic system in the world, I'll remind them they couldn't be further from the truth. A great democracy wouldn't have room for a powerful, high-ranking politician who publicly and viciously tells millions of motorists that many of them are idiots simply because of the cars they choose to drive.