Friday, February 24, 2023
Let them eat turnips
There were some tomatoes in my local supermarket yesterday, but very few florets of broccoli, no tagliatelle and quite a few empty shelves in other departments. The fact is that food supply has suffered in recent months. Not only is it getting more expensive, but some items are becoming more and more difficult to find.
The reasons for this are complex. Energy costs, bad weather caused by climate change, increases in transport costs combined with a shortage of drivers, and, of course, the very many problems caused by Brexit ranging from red tape on imports to farmers not being able to source labour from Europe as they have done in the past.
It would be refeshing if UK ministers at least acknowledged these issues and tried to do something about it, but instead we had the startling response from the Environment Secretary yesterday, effectively saying we should try eating turnips instead.
As the Guardian reports, Thérèse Coffey, caused a furore after she suggested people should “cherish” seasonal foods such as turnips as bad weather cleared supermarket shelves of tomatoes and other fresh produce:
“It’s important to make sure that we cherish the specialisms that we have in this country,” Coffey told parliament. “A lot of people would be eating turnips right now rather than thinking necessarily about aspects of lettuce and tomatoes and similar.”
With a love of turnips more commonly associated with the long-suffering manservant Baldrick in Blackadder, Coffey handed her critics the kind of material they could normally only dream of.
“Let them eat turnips!” suggested the Labour MP Ben Bradshaw, using the hashtag #TomatoShortages, as “turnips” started to trend on Twitter timelines for possibly the first time.
Coffey made her comments after being called to the Commons to answer an urgent question about supermarket rationing of salad ingredients, owing to shortages caused by bad weather in Spain and north Africa. She had been trying to make a point about eating seasonally.
“I’m conscious that consumers want a year-round choice and that is what our supermarkets, food producers and growers around the world try to satisfy,” she added.
This may be one of those moments when Coffey will be forever associated with turnips.
Comments:
<< Home
Theresa Coffey is due for a promotion. She is shortly to take up a new appointment as Chair of the Turnip Marketing Board
Perhaps it was a deliberate ploy by Coffey to divert her social media association with cigars and booze? :-) I suspect she is a secret Blackadder devotee.
Post a Comment
<< Home
