Clarkson described the new Fiat 124 Spyder as ‘an elephant on a unicycle’ in today’s Sunday Times. Basing the larger bodyshell of the Fiat on the smaller Mazda MX-5 chassis just ruined a great sports car.

There’s something of that about the Active Tourer. Underneath that bland MPV is a BMW 2 Series – the same basic platform that hosts the rather brilliant M2.

This is hard to comprehend as the one pleasure missing from the 225xe is the joy of driving. Despite a nippy 0-60mph time of 6.7 seconds and all the inherent sportiness of BMW in general, it really sucks.

Dad or mum aren’t going to get many thrills after doing the school run. The hybrid technolog is great to boast about at dinner parties but really, the xe needs an injection of ‘fun’ to merit the price tag…