Kemi Badenoch “will not touch bread if it’s moist.”
Tory leader Kemi Badenoch doesn’t consider sandwiches “real food.” | Henry Nicholls/AFP via Getty Images
December 12, 2024 4:08 pm CET
Britain’s Conservative Leader Kemi Badenoch kicked off a heated political debate about a lunchtime favorite Thursday after declaring that sandwiches are not “a real food.”
Badenoch revealed her deep disdain for the bread-and-filling staple in an interview with the Spectator, in which she declared herself too busy to eat lunch — but conceded she will sometimes “have a steak.”
Prime Minister Keir Starmer — who leads a country grappling with a stagnant economy, straining public services and multiple crises abroad — in turn accused Badenoch of talking down a “Great British institution.”
The Spectator asked the Tory leader — elected to the head of the U.K. opposition party in November — if she ever took a lunch break.
“What’s a lunch break? Lunch is for wimps,” she shot back. “I have food brought in and I work and eat at the same time. There’s no time … Sometimes I will get a steak.”
Badenoch added: “I’m not a sandwich person, I don’t think sandwiches are a real food, it’s what you have for breakfast.” The Tory leader went on to confirm that she “will not touch bread if it’s moist.”
That prompted a patriotic pushback from Starmer’s official spokesperson.
Asked by Westminster’s deadly serious journalists about the prime minister’s views on sandwiches Thursday, the spokesperson said: “I think he was surprised to hear that the leader of the opposition has a steak brought in for lunch. The prime minister is quite happy with a sandwich lunch.”
They said the sandwich is a “great British institution” — and cited figures from the British Sandwich Association suggesting the food raises £8 billion a year for the U.K. economy.
It’s not the first time sandwiches have dominated British political discourse. Then-Labour Leader Ed Miliband was snapped on the 2015 campaign trail awkwardly eating a bacon sandwich, in a moment that was used by the Conservatives to suggest he was out of touch with ordinary Brits.
Liz Truss, Britain’s former prime minister, was also unfavorably compared to a popular sandwich filling during her brief time as prime minister.
Starmer “enjoys a tuna sandwich and occasionally a cheese toastie,” his spokesperson said Thursday.
