OCCASIONALLY, when people don't know me well, they call me conservative. I am usually struck by how odd this is, because I am the most useless conservative I know. I'm far too atheist, pro-choice and generally as terrified of gays getting married as I am of gays eating lunch, to be conservative.

The problem might well be that I'm a fan of liberty in general, and conservatives — such as George W Bush — like to bang on about liberty, usually while meaning the opposite.

And I have watched with astonishment as conservative commentators in the US and the UK give an almighty right-of-centre shrug as the partner (a gay man, which probably muddied the waters for those otherwise crystal-clear conservative minds) of a Guardian journalist was detained for nine hours without charge at Heathrow Airport the other day.

So it is odd that I find myself in the company of a gang of elitist lefties in my concern at the arrest of David Miranda. Where are the British liberals? Why such a shocking silence? The answer, I suspect, is the Liberal Democratic Party is utterly compromised by coalition, and is devastatingly silent on the affair. It blows my mind that Nick Clegg has been so hopeless on this. I thought this was key Libdem territory.

It's doubly irritating because the shrill complaints emanating from The Guardian are deeply hypocritical. I don't know what really motivated The Guardian in its bayonet charge at tabloid journalism generally in the UK, but I suspect its senior staff had a problem with the Murdoch-owned press generally, because it often tends to be right-wing, and, I suspect, they kind of hated the people who read them. Any way you look at it, it was The Guardian that exposed the egregious hacking of famous people's cellphones.

That's all well and good. But The Guardian also sat by and did little more than encourage the British authorities as they sacked the homes of tabloid journalists and established the Leveson enquiry.

In fact, everything The Guardian is now experiencing is what the tabloid press in the UK has been going through for years. At least two tabloids were forced to hand over hard drives, reporters' notes and even address books to police as part of what is apparently the biggest investigation in British police history. So The Guardian's shrieking about its hard drives being destroyed is both entirely justified and hugely irritating. The Guardian did this to itself.

It is not as if the partners of tabloid journalists have not had to hold their children as police ripped up carpets and rifled through their knicker drawers. And it is not as if the material Miranda was bringing to The Guardian on a flight paid for by The Guardian was obtained legally either, just like the juicy details of who's bonking whom stolen by cellphone interception by the tabloid hacks.

The fact is that the only difference for The Guardian is that it might haughtily claim that what it is doing is in the public interest, but last time I checked the Islington Set doesn't get to set those parameters, and neither should the police, the National Security Agency or Hugh Bloody Grant.

The idea that what has been going on at the tabloids in the UK for the last two years wouldn't happen to the sainted Guardian once it, too, ruffled the feathers of the increasingly technocratic British state, has got to be the height of naivete.

Is it possible they really believed themselves safe from the jackboots in their ivory tower, that, like all good left-wingers, they wanted to change the world for everyone else, but not personally live with the consequences?

You sometimes read stuff in some of the world's great publications and wonder if they are mad or whether it is, in fact, oneself who is bonkers. The only publication I subscribe to is The Economist, and sometimes it makes the perilous journey from my letter box to my house without being devoured by our fox terrier. And I really love it.

But it was The Economist, I am reliably informed by another Economist fan, that once described the Porsche Cayenne as "obscene", with I assume the editors failing to jump on an example of the all-too-easy prescriptive leftiness that can accompany comment about SUVs among a certain kind of London elite.

Because the Porsche Cayenne is not obscene. No, the bad news is that the Porsche Cayenne — specifically the new S Diesel model — is utterly brilliant.

I've lost count of the number of times people have of late asked me why Porsche are doing so well in SA, why there are so many of them on the roads. And people are always considerably shocked at the answer — put simply, Porsches are great value.

My favourite examples: a Nissan 370Z Coupe costs R630,000 with automatic transmission. The Porsche Cayman, with its brilliant double-clutch automatic gearbox, costs R675,000. An entry-level Land Rover Discovery costs R730,000, and an entry-level Porsche Cayenne costs R744,000.

Obscene? Obscenely good value, more like.

The S Diesel model I drove is a pricier affair (R920,000), but it does come with a stonking V8 diesel that propels this leather-clad family SUV to 100km/h in less than six seconds, and bestows it with hugely long legs. On the freeway this car wants to run, the eight-speed automatic ensuring the engine is barely idling at 1,800rpm at the national speed limit.

The car is customisable to one's mood, too. On the school run, you just stick it into "D", press the comfort button and enjoy the magic carpet. When in the mood for a little pace, whack the lever into sport, firm up the suspension and the steering, and gibber appropriately as this very large car goes round corners flatter than an athlete's stomach.

It really is all things to all people. Even the fuel consumption is parsimonious. You can go off-road, you can tow the ponies or the caravan or the boat. The kids will love the space and drivers will be blissfully happy that not only are they at the wheel of the best family car on earth, they also didn't pay through the nose for it either. Everyone should drive a Porsche. And I'll happily live with the consequences of that.