Gideon and the shamburger

Poor old Gideon. Forced to make do with a burger and chips on his desk, he couldn’t resist the temptation to tweet the image and it was downhill from there.

This morning, his spending review didn’t cause quite the splash he expected in the Sun. Poshboys really should be careful where they buy their burgers if they’re planning to get the PR department in for the event. But he didn’t send someone out for a burger from the big yellow arches down the road where they start at 99p. And then he told some porkies about why he hadn’t.

These were his mistakes:

• He ordered a burger and chips from a branch of the upmarket restaurant Byron in the Cut at Waterloo, on the other side of the river.
• Byron, which is estimated by the Telegraph to make profits of £7-8m a year, was founded by old Etonian, Tom Byng, whose previous venture in the restaurant business was Zucca, said to have been the “office canteen” of David Cameron’s Notting Hill set.
• Gideon’s burger cost £6.75, chips an extra £2.95, a total of £9.70. That was a cheap option. The Byron burger is £8.50 with extra toppings at £1.50 each. Tom Byng describes it as “”perfect austerity food“.
• Gideon told ITV’s Daybreak earlier today that he was “partial to a quarter pounder with cheese” (implying that he would have gone to MacDonalds) but added: “Well McDonald’s doesn’t deliver. I was working late in the office.” It was later confirmed that Byron doesn’t deliver either.