The girl to my right at dinner last night was a Liberal Democrat. So she sends her children to school on the bus, dislikes titles and would like to get rid of the Queen because she’s too expensive and the money would be better spent on muesli.

But because a nation needs checks and balances, if you got rid of the Queen you’d have to replace her with an elected president.

This went down well with the Liberalist. Of course the head of state should be elected. It’s preposterous that we have to put up with a little old lady, or a man who admits he talks to vegetables.

Doubtless she imagines that the president we’d elect would be a sage old chap with a tweed jacket, the voice of Stewart Granger and the mind of Stephen Fry. Every day he’d thumb through the red boxes sent down from parliament, making wise observations and sensible suggestions.

But this wouldn’t happen. If you think about it, America had 250m candidates for president and was offered a choice of two. A man with the stupidest hair in Christendom and a blithering idiot who can’t talk properly. It would be no different here.

At the next election there are three realistic options. An Old Etonian who’s a communist, a dour slack-jawed Presbyterian, or an old-age pensioner. None has the voice of Stewart Granger. None has the mind of Stephen Fry.

When Londoners were offered a mayor, the best possible option was a man with out-of-control adenoids who keeps newts. And the only Labour candidate found for the hard-up working-class voters in Dulwich and West Norwood turned out to be a woman who doesn’t know whether she’s £350,000 in debt or £650,000 in credit.

So what makes anyone think that the presidential candidates would be any better? They wouldn’t. I can absolutely guarantee that the line-up would be an ethnically, gender-fair assortment that would make the candidates on Big Brother look sane and normal.

Or the job would go to a celebrity. No, really. Think about it. The good people of the state of California elected an Austrian bodybuilder who spent a career in film zipping through time and carrying very large logs. Ordinarily he would have stood no chance. But because he was Arnold Schwarzenegger he’s now in the hot seat, putting countless petty criminals in a seat that’s even hotter.

So we might very well end up with Lenny Henry. He ticks all the boxes. Black. Charming. Does loads for charity. And Dawn French would be a first-class first lady.

Then there’s Paul McCartney. Obviously he isn’t black but he is a scouser and that’s the next best thing. Better still, he’s internationally recognised, a keen vegetarian, a non-smoker and he has a disabled wife.

Or how about Nicholas Witchell. He’s neither black nor a scouser but he is ginger. And is famously disliked by the royals anyway.

Maybe we could put the candidates in a televised office of some kind and give them matters of the day to discuss. We, the voters, would be able to see how they’d handle the Iraq crisis and what they’d do about foxy woxy. And how about using money from the voting phone lines to pay for the Olympic Games? Or some kind of badger sanctuary? The only danger with this idea is that you’d have to insert a token white middle-class person who, as we know from previous Big Brothers and celebrity-in-the-jungle programmes, would win. That’d mean we’d end up with Jack Dee as president (not such a bad idea) or Tony Blackburn. Or Carol Thatcher.

I wonder, then, would an Irish person be allowed to enter? I’d like to think so. It would make them feel better about the potatoes and Oliver Cromwell and we could also see the global politico-heavyweights of Bob Geldof and Bono enter the fray. Though I’m not sure we’d want a president named after a dog biscuit.

Whatever, if we do open the doors to Irishists, it means we could vote for Terry Wogan. Loved by millions. Cleverer than you might think. And after a 400-year career in broadcasting utterly unblemished by even a whiff of scandal. I’d vote for him.

So we’d end up with President Terry, which would be cheaper, slightly, than having a royal family. But would it be better? And that leads me, surprisingly, on to the new Fiat Grande Punto.

At the moment, small hatchbacks with a hint of grunt for long motorway journeys tend to cost around £10,000. A 1.4 litre Ford Fiesta Style is £9,295, a 1.4 litre Renault Clio Dynamique is £10,250 and a 1.4 Toyota Yaris T2 D-4D is £10,295. The new Fiat Grande Punto 1.4 Active Sport, on the other hand, is just £8,495. That’s not far short of £2,000 less than the Toyota. So is the Punto inferior in some way? Not in the looks department it isn’t. By a very long way, this is the prettiest of all the superminis, and the biggest. Which means it’s also the most spacious inside.

Things are looking good, and they get better because not only is there a big boot, room in the back for children and space in the front for a small zoo, the interior is also a zany and funky place to sit. My test car had a pale blue dashboard, for instance.

Then there’s the quality of the thing. Italian cars were always a bit like Italian tempers. Easily broken. But the new Punto has a substantial feel, a sense that nothing’s going to fall off or come loose. The steering wheel is so fat you can barely get your fingers round it and the gearlever is the sort of thing that you’d expect to find on an American muscle car or a 19th century railway locomotive.

Equipment? Again not bad. Certainly there are no obvious missing features that would explain the low price, except perhaps the lack of a boot handle. To open the tailgate you have to get into the car, push a button that is right in the middle of the dash and them climb out again. That would drive me properly nuts.

But not as nuts as the way the Fiat drives. Of course you don’t expect it to be a ball of fire. But you do expect something to happen when you put your foot down, especially when you’ve just pulled out to overtake a slow-moving Rover 25 and there’s a truck coming the other way.

Sadly, however, nothing does happen. You see, this is not only the biggest car in its class, but also by some margin it’s the least powerful. As a result, 0-62mph takes 13.2 sec. And that, in the car world, is an ice age. I could forgive the Punto this shortfall if it had the usual Latin peppiness on country roads. But it doesn’t. The electric power steering is too sharp and the brakes too snatchy. It’s hard to make it flow. And the clutch bite is so sudden I did stall a lot too.

Other problems? Well, the stereo system couldn’t receive Radio 2, the seatbelt warning beep was loud enough to shatter wine glasses, and if you put a can of drink in the cupholders and go round a corner it falls over. On balance, then, I’d have to say the Renault Clio is the better car.

Pity, because I liked the Fiat. I really like the styling and my wife thought it “sweet”. But when all’s said and done it’s a bit like the idea of having Terry Wogan as president. Cheap. But not necessarily good value.

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