MP at the heart of currant affairs begins battle to secure return of Chelsea bun

YOU might have thought British politics had witnessed enough bun fights in recent years but now one MP is going into battle to save the Chelsea bun.

Greg Hands, the Conservative MP for Chelsea and Fulham, is waging a oneman campaign to rescue the centuriesold British pastry, eager to dispel complacency about the sweet currant bun’s future.

“I noticed over the years, it’s been at the back of my mind, niggling away, that I hadn’t seen Chelsea buns in ages,” Mr Hands, who is also the trade minister, said. “It’s been gnawing away at me a little bit. I thought, well, why don’t I launch a campaign to revive it because it seems to be quite out of fashion.”

He said that the campaign he launched last month has “really struck a chord”, which he attributes to a hankering for “British nostalgia” as well as the “relatively recent craze for baking”.

Nostalgia certainly lies behind Mr Hands’ own attachment to the bun, which is flavoured with lemon peel and mixed spice or cinnamon.

“When I grew up in Britain in the 70s, my mother used to come back from the bakery every day with some kind of treat for the kids,” he said. “One of the days, it was Chelsea buns, so I sort of grew up on Chelsea buns once a week.”

He realised things had come to a head when he was unable to get them in his local upmarket bakery.

“I was at Gail’s in Chelsea, and not even they stock a Chelsea Bun,” he said.

Mr Hands acknowledged that the buns are not to everybody’s taste because they are “quite sweet” but believes they are harder to find because they are less “trendy” than alternatives.

“The dessert of choice in this area is a pain au raisin, cinnamon buns, that kind of stuff,” he said.

Mr Hands suspects the Chelsea bun ironically may be in ruder health outside the capital. “It might be a sort of London, cosmopolitan kind of trend thing – you’re more likely to get a pastel de nata than a Chelsea bun.”

Thankfully, there remains one outlet in his constituency.

Partridges, the family food shop on Duke of York Square, continues to stock the buns.

It also hosts the World Chelsea Bun Awards, which Mr Hands is promoting as part of his campaign.