John Crawford might spend hours every day sitting in a Ford Focus, the make of car singled out by George Osborne yesterday as best representing a financially squeezed and thoroughly fed up nation. "In the last six months, the cost of filling up a family car such as a Ford Focus has increased by £10," the chancellor said in his budget.
But ask Crawford if he feels symbolic of the modern UK and he visibly bristles. "Am I a representative of middle Britain?" the 69-year-old maintenance contractor asks. "No, not at all. I don't even need to work any more but I still do. If I packed up work I'd die. That's not typical of Britain now. There's a lot of lazy bastards out there, who've become acclimatised to doing nothing."
As a man who drives hundreds of miles a week around London and the home counties as a call-out repair man for hundreds of blocks of flats, Crawford is painfully conscious of the cost of driving ("I can get 38mpg from this, even in the city. I had a Mercedes before this for a bit – 18mpg. Useless.") but nonetheless remains immune to the siren call of Osborne's budget.
He says: "It's good he's cut the duty, of course, but it's only gone down a penny. And you know what'll happen? Gaddafi's war is an excuse for prices to go up again and they'll never go down. It always happens like that. We'll be paying £7 a gallon by Christmas. I blame the greedy government – they take too much tax."
Indeed, if Crawford, from Elstree, Hertfordshire, represents anything politically it is the increasingly common British strain of industrial strength cynicism directed towards all politicians of all parties. He sums it up bluntly: "I don't support anyone. They're all a load of arseholes.
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The Ford Focus is a small family car manufactured by Ford first in Europe starting July 1998, then worldwide starting February 2000 (with its own model for North America in production until late 2010). A second generation launched in Europe in January 2005, received styling and engineering updates in January 2008, and is marketed globally outside North and South America. The third generation model will be sold globally upon its launch, first in Europe (late 2010) then in the Americas (early 2011).
In Europe, South America, North America and South Africa, the Focus replaced the Ford Escort. In Oceania and Asia, it replaced the Ford Laser.
Altogether, over 9.2 million Ford Focus vehicles in two generations have been sold worldwide since its 1998 launch in Europe.The Ford Focus was the best selling car in the United Kingdom for January 2011.
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