Mark Andrews: A pompous Charlie, end of the road for Luton, and what is Mick Miller doing in the new Jaguar advert?

Charlie Falconer, who served as justice secretary in Tony Blair's governments, has accused the present holder of that post, Shabana Mahmood, of imposing her religious beliefs on others by voting against the assisted dying bill.

What arrant, pompous nonsense from a man who spent the best part of a decade imposing his own metropolitan liberal ideology on the nation. And unlike Tony Blair's former flatmate Baron Falconer of Thoroton, ,at least Miss Mahmood went to the trouble of standing for election first.  

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Champagne corks will no doubt be popping in Extinction Rebellion headquarters, as the crusties begin to see their campaign bearing fruit.

Stellantis, the ludicrously named conglomerate that now owns Vauxhall, is to close its van plant in Luton in April, after 120 years in the town. The company blames the Government's impossible-to-achieve targets, which require it to produce ever-increasing numbers of electric vans, which nobody can afford to buy because we are in the middle of a cost-of-living crisis caused largely by, ahem, spiralling electricity costs. I think that's what you call joined-up thinking.

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Normally, such an announcement would be accompanied by wailing from government, with ministers half-heartedly asking for futile meetings with Vauxhall executives in order to look like they are trying to do something.

Yet, the Government seems surprisingly relaxed about the whole thing. Well, of course it's 1,100 fewer 'working people' to worry about, given that they will all be losing their jobs. 

Besides, we all know working people don't drive vans, at least not the nice ones, the modern, progressive ones. No, good working people tear around big cities on push-bikes or those death-trap scooters, delivering over-priced sandwiches to wealthy urban liberals.

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It seems about the most positive thing anyone has said about the new Jaguar ad, which features an array of sinister-looking people wearing stupid clothes, is that it has 'got people talking'. That's what PR types always say when they have screwed up. 

I do remember Gerald Ratner got people talking about his brand when he admitted to selling 'total crap' at the Institute of Directors conference. I'm not sure it did much for sales, though. 

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Aside from the fact that the new Jaguar ad looks like something from a bad 1960s sci-fi series, and of course makes no reference to cars, the striking thing about it is that one of the oddballs in it looks remarkably like the not-especially-woke comedian Mick Miller, who is coming to Dudley Town Hall in April. I wonder if that's the target market they are now looking to?

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The rebrand also features a new badge, which replaces the growling cat with something akin to one of those designer perfume knock-offs you sometimes see in discount retailers, and an illiterate new typeface which jumbles up capital and lower-case letters. 

Of course, all this will be forgotten if Jaguar actually comes up with some glamorous, attractive cars that people aspire to own. But it has been a long time since Jaguar came up with anything remotely alluring. Jaguars were once some of the most beautiful and quintessentially British cars on the road. But why anybody would want something as ugly and dull as the van-like F-Pace I can't possibly imagine.

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Talking of mindless rebranding, American Express has just sent me a letter informing me of 'important changes' to my credit agreement. That, taking effect from February next year, my credit card, which is currently a see-through pearl colour, and was previously gold, will be replaced by a platinum-coloured one. Which I think means grey.. I can barely wait.