Soon it’ll be time to renew my car insurance. When I investigated, I was disappointed to discover that I don’t qualify for cover from Whitey’s Wheels, the new company that only insures Anglo-Saxon drivers. For some time now, actuaries have recognized that white people make fewer and smaller claims on their car insurance than black and coloured people. Whites tend not to drive hot hatches or tuned-up Beemers or have expensive stereos fitted to their vehicles; they generally drive more cautiously (lower testosterone, you see); and they are less likely to live in areas where theft and vandalism is rife. Also, at night, the police find it easier to recognize white faces behind the wheel. Because of these statistics most insurance companies offer a discount to drivers willing to describe themselves as “white” on their application forms.

Whitey’s Wheels is the first insurance company to specialise in providing low-cost cover for non-blacks. They have an excellent advertising campaign too, in which Lenny Henry attempts to wangle his way to a lower premium by imitating the ways of white people, but is caught out at the last minute by, for example, lapsing into syncopated swaying at a rehearsal for an amateur production of Handel’s Messiah.

Ah well, I suppose I’ll have to continue my direct debit payments to Clive Lloyd’s of London.