Shropshire Star

Mark Andrews: Dangers of doughnuts, Chancellor does Playschool, and Rishi gets caught without a seatbelt

Bringing cakes into the office is as harmful as passive smoking, says the chairman of the Food Standards Agency.

Published
Jeremy Hunt explains the cost of coffee

Prof Susan Jebb, fears bringing sweet treats into the workplace could tempt colleagues into actions that harm their health.

Now this is a subject on which I feel I can speak with some authority. Over Christmas, most of our newsroom clubbed together to bring in cakes, pastries, sausage rolls and various other foodstuffs which I'm sure would give Prof Jebb a fit of the vapours. For the Platinum Jubilee, similar mirth was to be had.

I, on the other hand, politely declined, not good for my dodgy ticker. There was no ill feeling, I was under no peer pressure to give myself another heart attack. I'm old enough to make my own decisions and don't need the nanny state protecting me from the dangers of a jam doughnut.

* * *

I did try to show willing, though, by offering to donate some of my horrible low-fat biscuits to the spread. These cost three times the price of normal biscuits and have the texture of dry Weetabix sprinkled with sawdust.

Surprisingly, there weren't any takers, maybe I could have sold them better. People just smiled nervously and wondered why I was so grumpy. Which is pretty much the same as most days.

* * *

Rishi Sunak not wearing a seatbelt

Rishi Sunak has got his second fixed penalty notice in the space of a year after being filmed for the social media website Instagram riding in the back of his ministerial car without a seatbelt.

My initial thought was that whoever reported him to the police really ought to get a hobby. But my second thought was that it serves him flippin' right.

What is it with politicians and social media? Do they think it makes them seem 'down with the kids', or are they simply dodging the difficult questions they might be asked in traditional interviews?

Remember, the only reason he and Boris got fined for Partygate was because they were stupid enough to have an 'official photographer' taking snaps.

* * *

It comes the same week as Jeremy Hunt made a Playschool-style video explaining inflation to the great masses who are obviously too dim to understand why everything costs so much.

The film opened with the Chancellor walking into a coffee shop and asking for a 'flat white'. I'm sorry, but anybody who asks for a 'flat white' is only inviting ridicule. Any normal person says 'I'll have a coffee please', and rolls their eyes when asked 'what type?'.