The other night my local MP, an up and coming Tory, told me over dinner that Tony Blair had banned smoking, smacking and hunting in just one week. “So imagine what he’d be able to do in the next five years.”

I was thinking about this the next day as I drove through a 20mph “home zone” on my way to a no-smoking restaurant in Oxford when onto the radio came a man with news of a proposed law that would ban four-wheel-drive cars from “green laning” in the countryside.

It seems that for some time now the infernal Ramblers’ Association has been twittering on about maniacs in souped-up Land Rovers spoiling the peace and serenity of the countryside by chewing up the nation’s footpaths and deafening the birds.

This seems fair enough until you pause to consider. According to my calculations there are in Britain 82,000 miles of countryside footpaths on which cars are not allowed. Then we have 18,000 miles of bridleway on which you may ride a horse (so long as you’re not chasing a fox, obviously) but cars are still banned. In fact there are only 2,500 miles of byways on which you can take a car.

So walkers have more than 95% of the country’s paths to themselves, plus all the land on which Tony says they’re now allowed to roam. Yet they want more. They want it all.

And, of course, because the ramblers are urban communists for whom the Labour party has a natural affinity, they tend to get what they want.

So the government is looking at how this ban can be implemented, what it should cover and where. But I bet there’s one thing they’ve overlooked . . .

Most of the people who go green laning, at heart, are murderers for whom Deliverance was not a film but an aspirational lifestyle choice. They wear combat trousers, collect knives and the only thing they like to do more than cataloguing all the heads they’ve severed is deliberately getting their car stuck in the mud so that they and their friends can spend the rest of the day digging it out again.

Over the years I have met several green laners and could just tell they all were wondering what my head would look like on a spike. So if they’re banned from driving in the countryside I have very real concerns that the green and pleasant land will become a bloodbath. Ramblers may well cease to be troubled by the roar of big V8s, but they may well be deafened by the sounds of other ramblers being made to squeal like a piggy. Blair’s Witch-Hunt will turn into The Blair Witch Project.

Of course I don’t know why I’m bringing this up because whenever Mr Blair’s government gets the scent of a potential ban in its nostrils it can’t be stopped. So 4x4s will be outlawed from the countryside and then, after a period of extended congestion charging, they will be banned from city centres, too. Which means the country’s murderers, footballers, school-run mums and black DJs are going to need a substitute.

Actually, they’re going to need a substitute even without government legislation because off-roaders are a fad, just like hot hatchbacks were a fad in the Eighties. And obviously fads, by their very nature, eventually go away. It’s hard to predict what might be next but I keep looking at the Renault Vel Satis and thinking: “Hmmm.”

You see, we buy a 4x4 for the same reason that we used to buy a hot hatch. It’s because we have a latent fear of the four-door saloon. A four-door saloon is seen as being boring.

A four-door saloon is what Terry and June used. A four-door saloon is a repmobile, a car you choose when the boss has given you no choice at all.

So what are the alternatives? An MPV, which is a sign you’ve completely given up with life?

A two-seater convertible, which would be no use for the family? A Volvo estate? What, like Jerry had in The Good Life? Puh-lease. So eventually we end up at the large and stylish door of the Vel Satis.

In essence this is a normal two-wheel-drive, five-seater, five-door executive car designed to compete with the BMW 5-series and the E-class Mercedes. But because Renault knows it has neither the technical flair nor the badge to compete with the Germans on level terms, it has gone its own way.

The result is a strange but rather fabulous looking creation that doesn’t look or feel quite like anything else on the market today. And that’s because no car I know is so wilfully stylish. It’s all form, and forget the function.

I love it, but there’s a big question to be answered. Does the style of the thing mask some technical deficiency, and if so does it matter? I mean, half the bottle openers you can buy these days look great but could no more open a bottle of wine than plough 400 acres of East Anglia. Doesn’t stop you buying them, though, does it?

Well, when we step inside the Vel Satis we find seats that, unlike the Germanic norm, are huge and squidgy. Strange for a country where mothers think it is their social responsibility to make sure their children have small bottoms, but very good news indeed in a country where mothers force-feed their children with lard to keep them quiet.

Then there’s the space. All cars feel a little claustrophobic when they are full of people, but having five in the Vel Satis is like having five in the ballroom of the Grosvenor. Partly this is down to an enormous amount of head and leg room, and partly it’s down to the choice of colours.

You see in a BMW or a Mercedes you have a choice of black, black, black or dark black, whereas every Vel Satis I’ve driven has been kitted out with lots of cream and beige. This means it feels what an estate agent would call light and airy.

Some of the detailing is exquisite, too, like the marquetry on the woodwork, and as usual with French cars these days the list of equipment that comes as standard is dazzling. The satellite navigation system is particularly noteworthy because it actually works.

I know this because when I asked it to find a route into the middle of Oxford last week, which is a bit like asking it to find a route into the bowels of Fort Knox, it didn’t simply explode. What’s more, it didn’t make a single mistake earlier in the day even though I had to be in Chippenham for breakfast, Le Caprice for lunch and home for tea.

Unfortunately on this eight-hour round trip the rest of the car was not quite so competent. The 3.5 litre V6 in my top of the range £31,000 test car is the same 3.5 litre V6 you get in a Nissan 350Z. It’s a good engine with plenty of oomph but it’s too much for a front-wheel-drive car. So any request for more speed was met with a Gallic shrug and a puff of wheelspin.

Then there’s the ride. Most of the time it’s as soft as the seats, and that makes for an uncannily un-German feel, but when the road surface goes all blotchy the suspension just can’t cope at all and flicks into wobble-drive. This becomes wearisome after a while.

But the driving position becomes wearisome way sooner than that. Get the seat right for your legs and the wheel is too far away for your arms.

And then some of the trim fell off. It was only a small piece and it didn’t really matter but it provides a clue about the Renault’s shortcomings.

It’s a large, luxurious car from a company that simply doesn’t understand luxury at all.

Sadly, then, the Vel Satis is an appealing but ultimately hopeless replacement for your 4x4. But don’t despair, because one day a company with more experience of quality engineering will follow suit and sell us a car that’s not only properly stylish but good underneath as well.

BMW mechanicals. With a Conran look. It’s the next big thing.

Vital statistics

Model Renault Vel Satis Initiale 3.5 V6
Engine type Six-cylinder, 3498cc
Power 245bhp @ 6000rpm
Torque 243bhp @ 3600rpm
Transmission Five-speed automatic, FWD
Fuel 24.6mpg (combined)
CO2 275g/km
Acceleration 0-62mph: 8.3sec
Top speed 147mph
Price £31,325
Rating Three stars
Verdict A big softie

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