Andrew Webb finds George Osborne snacking on a burger while deciding the financial fate of millions rather hard to swallow.
If proof were needed that London's burger boom has just jumped the shark, it's right there in a carefully crafted piece of twitterganda from The Second Lord of the Treasury, George Osborne. The MP for Tatton tweeted a picture taken by someone else of him eating a burger, while 'putting the finishing touches to his Spending Review'. Move on to something else, burgers just ain't cool anymore.
Cut...chew...cut....chew
More galling, however, is that he's happily munching on a burger and chips, no doubt putting his podgy greasy fingers all over a document that is essentially going to cut welfare from some of the most disadvantaged in society. What makes matters worse is that George has gone on record as saying 'There I am working late on my speech, and I've got a takeaway hamburger, but it puts you on the front page of the Sun. It's an occupational hazard.' That's crap George and you know it. This was a piece of carefully managed stagecraft that you tweeted. Meanwhile 50 people a day who have no more that £10 for all their meals are calling the food bank in Stoke.
The £9.70 meal
Much has been made about the cost of the poor pattie thrust into the limelight - £9.70 from Byron according to The Sun. The paper is livid that he didn't walk to one of TEN McDonald's for one of their man-of-the-people offerings for a mere 99p. I actually feel sorry for Byron. They make nice burgers. Now they're getting stick for being 'posh'. George has a bit of previous in burger faux pas though. In April, he was photographed buying a McDonald’s at a motorway service station, while his driver parked the car in a disabled bay.
Mad cow burger
Of course George isn't the first Tory to come a cropper with burgers. John Gummer famously tried to feed his daughter Cordelia a burger at the height of the BSE outbreak in 1990. The accompanying image has been associated with him ever since. The burger doesn't seem to have done his daughter any harm however, and she's turned out to be a bit of a looker according to the Daily Mail.
We don't want to see politicians eating
Burgers are working class American food, but if George wanted to show he was a man of the people, surely he should have had a saveloy, or a sausage roll from Greggs. Having said that, when the Government tried to introduce the Pasty Tax, both PM and Chancellor were caught out trying to remember the last time they had a pasty, and how much they paid for it.
It seems whenever men in suits try to do 'cool' it always backfires, but where food and music are concerned it backfires spectacularly. Remember Gordon Brown who couldn't name his favourite biscuit? Or Tony Blair trying to look cool by playing guitar? Shudder. As for George, I'd have a bit more respect if he tweeted, 'Having an early night as I have to make some very big decisions in the morning,' and went to bed.
What do you think of George Osborne's burger stunt? And are you affected by the Spending Cuts? Tell us in the comments box below.