I never expected to be writing about how a character from government propoganda game/roleplay material issued to schools might just be able to save the British Car Industry, but here we are.
This does need a bit of explanation if you don’t have your finger on the pulse of the cultural zeitgeist, luckily I’m here to help. Pathways is an educational visual novel and learning experience created with funding from the U.K. government’s Prevent program, run by the Home Office. It is designed to teach the yoof about the dangers of radicalisation and extremism. The ‘hero’ is called Charlie, who has six different scenarios to deal with.
In the second scenario, the player is introduced to the character Amelia, a staunch anti-immigration protestor depicted as a goth girl with purple hair, a pink dress and a choker. The thing is, this is Britain. We have a sense of humour. We will take the piss out of everyone and everything, hence Boaty McBoatface. We mostly don’t like being told how to think and in just about every situation in life we like to take the piss. Turning Amelia into a someone who arguably gets what is actually going on in this country is rather funny.
She’s an angry teenage goth and if you are here purely because you fancy what resembles a harshly drawn anime character, that’s something else entirely. It also explains why our Free Car Mag Amelia is rather more grown up, for the simple reason that she lives in our copyright free Victorian/Edwardian illustration books on the middle shelf of our automotive library.
So rather than denouncing Amelia’s rhetoric as Pathways intended, many social media users have turned Amelia into a symbol for anti-immigration. Someone who celebrates how the country used to be before the government and it’s institutions over many decades, betrayed it. Pretty much the same thing happened to the British Car Industry.
For our purposes then Amelia loves cars. Indeed, he has read The British Car Industry, Our Part in its Downfall. Probably as a greta value PDF on her phone. Obviously she subscribes to Geoff Buys Cars on that You Tube. She knows what’s going on. Has a full driving license. Loves an old school hot hatch and realises that the electricity vehicles are rather misleading. The thing is that saving the British Car Industry when it is already six feet under is going to require some major excavation. Is Amelia up to it?
Not quite sure of just what role she has in the memes, whether it is as a benevolent dictator, or district councillor. Whatever, she’s a figurehead and inspires others to get things done. Amelia isn’t stupid and she realises that in order to fix The British Car Industry a few things need doing.
1. Cancel Net Zero. The Climate Change Committee (CCC) estimates that net zero requires roughly £50bn per year in economy-wide investment (including private households) in the coming decade. Also if you want to read all about Net Zero and the way it has affected car and made motoring more expensive for those least able to afford it, consider reading this. https://www.freecarmag.com/the-war-on-the-car-with-net-zero-watch Which also explains why I no longer work in the mainstream motoring media. Mind you, Net Zero Watch never return my phone calls these days. But anyway, billions, if not trillions, it depends on whose figures you believe are now free to be re-distributed into other car based projects and back to tax payers.
2. Drill Baby Drill. New analysis shows the UK could meet more of its energy needs from home – which could help cut imports, protect jobs and boost economic growth. The UK could meet half of its oil and gas needs from the North Sea, almost double what is currently forecast while also transforming its energy system taccording to research for Offshore Energies UK (OEUK). They still bang on about renewables and climate targets but Amelia won’t worry about that and will reveal the truth about how much money this country could be earning and using to power an economic recovery.
3. Dig Baby Dig, Amelia is happy to dig for victory so let’s get back to opening all those coal mines. We have high quality reserves The UK holds an estimated 3,000 million tonnes of coal resources, with about 600 million tonnes classified as accessible reserves in existing deep mines or shallow deposits, but that seems to be an underestimate and once Amelia starts digging there is hundreds of years worth of cheaper energy to be exploited.
4. Bonfire of the Rules & Regulations. There is a lot of bollox holding everyone one back and taxing us all into oblivion. Business over regulation is not good, but also the complicated business of car tax. Simplify it. A pretty flat road tax. Maybe reward people for having little economical things, so small, medium and large, but at a stroke the car market gets a boost.
5. Them Brainy Formula One Geeks. There are of course many magnificently talented engineers and designers working here, but for the purposes of fun and excitement, let’s concentrate on the F1 crowd. They are all based around Oxford, so let’s help them get bigger, that includes Mercedes and Red Bull and get them to expand operations and work with and against each other in competition to design and productionise vehicles that serve a useful purpose, see below, but can then be civilianised for profit..
6. Public Service Vehicles. Where do we start? PSVs would be a good place. We already do Fire Engines and a nation without an indigenous van is lost. Not cheap to do, but we must bring back the Sherpa…
7. Tariff the Chinese to Death. The big fat Panda lurking in the room needs to be dealt with. We don’t want or need them in our industry. Their SUVs are just great at reporting back on what we are up to and they have recruited the brightest and the best to persuade us to buy their wares. https://www.freecarmag.com/the-great-chinese-takeaway
8. Bring back the Japanese Car Industry. Nissan is still here, proving that making, building and developing vehicles consumers actually want to buy is still possible. Let’s expand on that, develop it, clone it, build better Skyline based police cars, see back PSVs…
9. This is not a Five Year Plan. Amelia isn’t worried about being re-elected. There is no short termism going on, this is a project designed to succeed with an almost infinite time line. That’s how we are going to get this industry back. Don’t be surprised if there are hover cars, flying cars and atomic powered ones in the not too distant future. Speculated on right here. https://www.bangernomics.com/car-stories.html
autofutropolis
10. it will have a Happy Ending. According to the Amelia fan boys, if she gets her way and can clear out all the asylum hotels, repatriate all the buggers who should not be here and empty the jails of foreign criminals then there will be a lot more space on the roads, house prices fall, NHS waiting lists evaporate and everything in the garden will be rosey. But what about Charlie? Is he a right Charlie? Well, he wises up, falls in love with and marries Amelia and they live happily ever after managing to pack the family into their brand new Beautiful British Williams Streetwise.
