Condiments are getting politicians in a pickle

Quick! Hide the ketchup! Miriam Gonzalez is reported to be in the neighbourhood. It seems that Mrs Nick Clegg – as I certainly mustn’t call her – is very particular about condiments. In her new book of recipes, she is pretty hoity-toity about the Camerons getting out the Hellmann’s mayonnaise when she and Nick went to dine in Downing Street.

That must have caused the coalition to wobble. And it surely would not have stood a chance if Danny Alexander, the first secretary to the Treasury for the Lib Dems, had then breathlessly sneaked to Miriam that George Osborne’s mustard came in a squeezy bottle.

One question that preoccupied the Westminster Village in those coalition years was, where do the Liberal Democrats stand on piccalilli? They must have had a policy on that, as they did on everything else.

I plan to write a book about the role of sauce in British politics. Many people will remember the stir it caused when the Labour prime minister, Harold Wilson, admitted (or perhaps boasted) that he had a weakness for HP sauce. It can’t be a coincidence that he was forced to devalue the pound.

Mrs Thatcher would, I’m sure, have no objection to mayonnaise in a bottle, so long as guests were prepared to thump the bottom very fiercely to get the last possible splat out of it. The Blairs, I am unreliably informed, were rather fond of Branston Pickle, but had it decanted into a jar labelled Old Ma Perkins’s Authentic Somerset Farmhouse Chutney. I’m guessing that Mrs May would regard most condiments as an unnecessary and frivolous distraction, but would not be dogmatic about it. And she’ll know that Waitrose do a pretty good Dijon mustard.

I’ve just heard that Jeremy Corbyn is coming down the street, so I’m reaching for pickled onions and wondering about the salad cream. It will be tremendously exciting when all deliveries are handled by drones. By the time this comes to pass, our intelligent wheelie bins will be able to sign for things. This will be a blessing. When I try to write on these new gadgets where you use a stylus to put your signature on a skiddy screen, it always looks like a picture of a snake falling downstairs. I’m sure a wheelie bin could do better than that. And it will be great when we get the “Sorry We Missed You” message as a text to our phone, instead of on a card hidden under a mound of junk leaflets. Then it won’t be long before every household in the land will have its own “returns” drone. The skies will be full of clothes that didn’t fit.

Of course, there are bound to be teething troubles. No doubt the arrival of the drone will set off other devices; the curtains will open and close, the TV will automatically set to record the central heating thermostat will be turned down and the electric carving knife will leap into action, but these things will soon be sorted.

In the early days, it may be advisable not to ask for the superfast delivery; the drone could come crashing through your front window, drop its package and fly about the room like a panicked pigeon.

Of course, they are bound to want feedback, to hear how satisfied we are with the service. Don’t worry – the clever wheelie bin can handle that side of things. To rewrite the old song, you’ve got to accentuate the negative, eliminate the positive, latch on to the contradictory and don’t mess with Mister in-Between. The banks are now considering charging negative interest rates to their business customers, effectively making them pay for the warm glow they get, knowing that the bank is holding their money. (No doubt they are actively toying with the idea of negative salaries for senior bank staff, as well.)

This negative approach is certainly catching on. Southern Rail bravely led the way by operating negative train timetables. Drawing up schedules of cancellations is so much simpler, so we can also expect negative departures boards at airports this summer. Let’s hope that too many people don’t catch on to the notion of negative shopping – you steal things from the shelves, then take money from the till as a fee for doing so.

I’m certainly too much of a coward to go in for negative tipping, when the customer demands a nonservice charge from the restaurant. However, when a busker on the London Underground plays the wrong kind of music badly and loudly, I am tempted to impose a fine by removing a few coins from his hat.