Strong reaction to Cameron eating hot dog with cutlery

WASHINGTON: On Monday, David Cameron did something very brave. The British prime minister, facing what is likely to be a close race for re-election on May 7, went to a voter’s garden and had a meal. Braver still, he allowed the British press to take photographs of him eating the meal.

It sounds strange, but in Britain’s election season, food-eating has become political. And it didn’t take long for Brits to notice that Cameron was eating wrong: he was using a knife and a fork to eat a hot dog.

Only someone like Cameron could eat a hot dog with a knife and fork, pictured,

The implication behind all the social media outpouring is that Cameron isn’t a normal human being, who would presumably eat a hot dog with his hands. That’s a little unfair, of course, but there’s a little truth to it. Cameron is the son of a stockbroker who can trace his lineage to royalty. His education epitomises the upper class of British life: schooling at Eton College, followed by a degree from Oxford University, where he was a member of the infamous restaurant-trashing Bullingdon Club.

Now, he leads a political party synonymous with the upper echelons of Britain’s class system. Even his fiercest supporters might have to begrudgingly admit that Cameron isn’t an “average” or “normal” Brit. He’s posh.

The hot dog problem is more complicated than that, however. Cameron had been attending the braai in Dorset, England, where he was meeting with people who had benefited from changes to Britain’s tax system that had come into force on Monday. The meal formed part of a wide-ranging preelection tour of the UK, where food had become central to showing he was an everyman.

As the Daily Mail noted after Cameron was photographed eating haggis (a popular Scottish food made with a sheep’s heart, liver and lungs) in Edinburgh, the prime minister seemed to be “eating his way around Britain in a bid to woo voters”. In 2012, Cameron was photographed eating hot dogs with his fingers with President Barack Obama, but this year, Cameron was apparently cautious about eating a potentially messy hot dog with his fingers. Sky News suggested that the British leader was trying to avoid a repeat of the photograph of his rival, Ed Miliband, eating a bacon sandwich.

The unflattering photograph of Miliband was taken almost a year ago, when he was spotted by photographers as he went to buy flowers for his wife at 6.30am. The Labour Party leader has been forced to acknowledge the photograph in speeches. “If you want the politician from central casting, it’s just not me, it’s the the other guy,” Miliband has said.

Britain’s problems with hot dogs have historical roots in the US. When King George visited president Franklin Roosevelt in 1939, they were served hot dogs by their American host, and while the King used his hands, Queen Elizabeth preferred to use a knife and fork. And while Americans may scoff, they’ve had their own food-eating related political incidents. Just last year, New York mayor Bill de Blasio caused a controversy by eating a slice of pizza with cutlery.