From fast food to fasting: Osborne’s austerity diet
LAST year his Budget preparations included a calorie-stacked Byron burger, wolfed down with a side of chips.
But Chancellor George Osborne is unlikely to be chomping on fast food as he prepares for Wednesday’s big speech.
Proving he has a head for figures – not least his own – Osborne last month took up the 5-2 diet, which involves eating just 600 calories a day for two days of the week.
The results of his newfound austerity diet were plain to see on yesterday’s Andrew Marr show on the BBC: with the once jowly chops replaced by a more slimline look.
Osborne’s health campaign began last year, when he was spotted wearing a £99 computerised wristband called the Jawbone Up, which monitors the amount of exercise he does.
While the “fast” diet allows followers to eat normally when they are not calorie counting, the Chancellor is no doubt more conscious of what he tucks into on non-diet days.
Byron burgers, and indeed the type of pasty Osborne attacked with such relish during the Pasty Tax debate, are probably no longer on the menu.
The Capitalist can only hope, though, that Osborne doesn’t choose Wednesday as a fast day.
Half-starved “fasters” have a reputation for being tetchy, and bookmakers might be tempted to add a new category for a flutter: how many times George Osborne’s stomach growls during his Budget speech.
Gabriella Griffiths is away.