Let them drink Coke

Acrate of Coca-cola is reported to have been loaded on to the plane bringing Rishi Sunak, the Prime Minister, back from his summit in San Diego. “I’m a Coke addict,” he has declared before now. If so, he demonstrates superhuman self-control, limiting himself to one bottle a week. He doesn’t even bother with Diet Coke, preferring the cane-sugar taste of Mexican Coke to the corn-syrup fructose of the US version. There may be some at home who wonder why he isn’t consuming for the cameras a sterling British fizzy drink such as Tizer or some Hexhambrewed dandelion and burdock. But the ambition for Britain to enjoy free trade with the rest of the world should imply an openness to products made abroad – claret, port, sherry or, for the active, teetotal, slimline PM, Coca-cola.