A tax on food obviously resonates deeply, particularly after a budget that reduced the top rate of tax from 50p to 45p (my emphasis):
"This is basically a tax on the working man of Britain," she says, "and on the many elderly and unemployed people who come by here for a pasty every lunchtime.
"My hot pasties would go up by 50p from £2.75: for some people, that will make a big difference. I'm planning to put a sign up in the window: 'Hot for the rich, and cold for the poor.'"But only a couple of years ago Cameron was desperate, as opposition leader, to 'decontaminate' the Tory brand: no issue was too cuddly to avoid and, acutely aware of his Eton background, he was eager to play down any thoughts that the Tories are for the rich - as his awkward interview with Andrew Marr in 2009 demonstrated.
Yet here we are with a tax which will hit the working man the hardest, and from Cameron et al there's silence. Osborne could have tried covering it up by saying it was all Brussels' fault - "we'll fight them on the beaches etc" even though we all know in reality it would be empty rhetoric as it so often is.
But no, instead they're prepared to take the electoral polling hit, prepared to scupper their next electoral chances and prepared to recontaminate the 'brand' (and once that sticks it ain't going anywhere). In short preparing to destroy their own party just for the sake of appeasing our EU masters.
All of which demonstrates very clearly who the EU benefits, and it certainly ain't us.
