Boris Johnson tucks into oatcakes for truly Stokie lunch

Boris Johnson led an oatcake-fired cabinet meeting after North Staffordshire’s favourite dish was put on the lunch menu. The Prime Minister was joined by senior government figures including Rishi Sunak, Priti Patel and Michael Gove for crunch talks over the cost of living crisis. Never mind if some might see it as a cheesy tradition for anyone who comes to the Potteries to be soon offered a plate bearing our irresistible steaming snack, our source says the country’s top brass were more than happy to roll with it. Diners have the option of oatcakes with cheese with sausage, bacon, beans or mushrooms at the in-house cafe at Middleport Pottery, where Johnson and colleagues worked and refuelled during today’s tour of Stoke-on-Trent.

: Boris Johnson swaps Westminster for Middleport Pottery for away day cabinet meeting “Can exclusively reveal that oatcakes were indeed a lunch option for the Cabinet today,” wrote Alasdair Brooks, chief executive of Re-Form Heritage, on Twitter. It shouldn’t come as a surprise.

Jacob Rees-Mogg had nipped into Hulmes Oatcakes and Pikelets last time he was in Tunstall while Gove once wrote in The Times that one of his golden rules for life was that “you can never have enough oatcakes” as well as “half-bottles of Champagne and Marks & Spencer smoked mackerel pate”. He might, however, have meant the other type oatcake – and not even ones from Derbyshire. Oatcakes normally feature somewhere in the itinerary when politicians head this way.

Jeremy Corbyn even claimed it was a highlight of his 2019 election campaign to prepare – and quite probably snaffle – a few on The Oatcake Boat on the Trent and Mersey Canal.

No matter which side of the spectrum you’re on, the food of the North Staffordshire gods is one way to unite the nation, as long as you don’t get brown sauce on your tie.

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