Jamie Oliver has been protesting outside number 10 Downing Street with an Eton Mess desert against the govern
ment 's delay in banning promotional offers around unhealthy food such as "but one Get one free."
But, whilst focusing on health is he missing the point as we , especially in. enter a period where cheap luxuries, especially in terms of food are more affordable than the necessities of energy and housing bills. Such a paradox appears to be lost in Jamie Oliver.
George Orwell summed this up in his observation of poverty in "Road to Wigan Pier": " Whole sections of the working class who have been plundered of all they really need are being compensated, in part, by cheap luxuries which mitigate the surface of life."
The irony of all this is that this is not lost on the current government who fully understand the need to sate people's wish to counter their poor situation with a little luxury even if it is loaded with fat, salt, sugar and E-numbers.
In George Orwell's time it was fish and chips, tinned salmon, cut price chocolate and strong tea that averted revolution. Nowadays, in the current climate, it is BOGOF offers!