What does your coffee say about you?

This week, hot beverage politics hit the headlines, as news emerged that Ed Miliband plays the role of coffee boy in the opposition offices.

David Cameron chose Prime Ministers Questions as a fitting time to divulge this information, clearly hoping to suggest that Ed Miliband isn’t ‘butch’ enough to take on the top dog position of PM.

In the same week Ed Balls shrugged off claims that that he split a cappuccino over a colleague’s papers. Don’t be mistaken for thinking that Mr Balls was embarrassed at defacing government work though.  On the contrary, he was upset at the accusation that he drinks a sissy cappuccino, when his preferred choice is a double espresso with an extra shot of hot water.

Discussion of the inappropriate timing of David Cameron’s comments, and the implicit suggestion in both Balls’ and Cameron’s statements that you need to be ‘butch’ (manly) to succeed in politics, could go on for hours. Nevertheless, the incidents also relate to another controversial topic: What foods/ drinks give a good business impression?

After all, agree with Balls/Cameron or not, you can see their simple logic: Strong coffee= strong personality. Recognising this however can open the door to a whole range of anxieties. Does displaying a weakness for chocolate immediately pigeonhole you as sweet? Does choosing Chinese over Indian make you a boardroom pushover, unable to handle the heat?

A quick browse of the Internet unearths a wealth of similar food/office questions and insecurities. One forum I came across was completely dedicated to what you could and couldn’t eat in business meetings, offering numerous scenarios dependent on what those around you were eating and what time of day it was.

Another particularly entertaining article from The Guardian discussed the rise of the breakfast meeting and the issues of tucking into a full English whilst others reach for a low-fat soya fruit pot whilst downing a wheatgrass shot.

Nevertheless, by far the most sensible piece of advice, and one which I will forever follow, came from Karen Brady who tells women not to shun the canapés at dinner parties, ‘because you can see the pained expression on their faces.’ Karen is right, people may disapprove of fatty but no one likes a killjoy.

At the end of the day, people may judge others on what they eat. However, I hope I am not alone in thinking that to judge an individual’s business credentials based on their choice of coffee is utterly ridiculous. Ed Balls can drink a skinny frappuccino with whipped cream and a caramel shot for all I care, as long as he does his job. 

By Polly Robinson

Nancygate

No one enjoys Monday mornings. In my experience they normally involve burnt toast and a prolonged search for clean underwear/ my oyster card. Yet for the Downing Street Press Office, this Monday was exceptionally bad.

Yes, as the World was waking the news was breaking that David Cameron had… left his daughter in a pub. The incident may have happened a few months ago but its negative implications as to our national security, combined with the pure comedy value of the situation, ensured the news spread like wildfire.

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Of course blame was being tossed like a hot potato- I could almost feel a bead of sympathetic PR sweat forming as I imagined the PM’s PR team trying to bat it from his door. We are all familiar with the mantra ‘no publicity is bad publicity’, but I suspect the fallacy of this statement becomes clear when in the midst of crisis management.

So how was this crisis managed?

All in all, I think well, although it did take Downing Street a while to settle on a sequence of events.  An overzealous individual -no doubt with the PM’s best interests at heart- announced that Mr C himself had gone to retrieve Nancy. The subsequent revelation that it was Mrs C who had rushed to her daughters rescue, left Downing Street’s press machinery rather embarrassingly exposed.

Be it the result of luck or manipulation, the UK became divided fairly early on in proceedings. On one side there were those who questioned Cameron’s suitability as PM when he was apparently incapable of baby-sitting. On the other were the sympathetic parents; those who had found themselves in similarly hot water and viewed Cameron’s parental failure as proof of humanity.

The heated debate, which ensued between the two parties, enabled the Camerons to maintain a contrite silence. Apart from a brief statement in which Mr Cameron deflected all responsibility away from his security staff (no-one likes a telltale), they let the pro-child-abandonment team raise every argument in their favour. Their silence and general demeanor gave the impression that they knew they had been wallies but are too busy running the country to become embroiled in domestic quibbles.  This is arguably the best possible outcome when they had been undeniably silly.

Luckily for the Camerons, they also had the support of a man who I suspect knows which side his bread is buttered. Stephen Hollings, Landlord of The Plough at Cadsden, was quick to jump to the PM’s defense. His vocal descriptions of the PM’s dedication as a father and restrained approach to booze, have no doubt ensured life-long patronage from the Cameron clan, along with a steady stream of celeb spectators, eager to spot the PM at his local. 

There was a moment it looked like Downing Street might breath a sigh of relief, but then there was the Leveson inquiry…

By Polly Robinson