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Let them eat prawn cocktail crisps Boris Johnson used to scoff at the puritans who wanted to curb our God-given appetites. Now he's become one of them

Boris Johnson visits the Tayto Castle crisp factory in County Armagh (Photo by Daniel Leal-Olivas - WPA Pool/Getty Images)

Boris Johnson visits the Tayto Castle crisp factory in County Armagh (Photo by Daniel Leal-Olivas - WPA Pool/Getty Images)


August 5, 2020   5 mins

To his fans, Boris Johnson is an icon of easy-going, even permissive, bouncy bounteousness. He is seen that way in part because of a strategy he has adopted since his time as a journalist reporting on the European Union. During that time, among numerous other pieces mocking EU bureaucracy and interference in national affairs, he highlighted a sinister EU plot to ban prawn cocktail crisps.

There was no such plot; in reality, British civil servants had mis-read the EU document in question. But that didn’t matter. It enabled Johnson to stand up for freedom of choice — consumer choice — and to make that unbridled consumer choice look English, as opposed to silly bureaucratic rules, which came to look European, stuffy, and uptight. He probably also knew that prawn cocktail crisps were a slap in the face for the metropolitan elite who would — and did, reliably — sneer at prawn cocktails, let alone their reincarnation as a snack food.

By championing them, and looking very like a man who enjoyed them, Boris Johnson made himself a member of a class — indeed, he almost created the class he came to exemplify. The class in question has acquired an abusive name, and it’s not coincidental that it is the name of a food.

For his foes, Boris Johnson is a gammon, and gammon is a contentious word for the visible class of people characterised not only by being members of the white Anglo-Saxon race, but also by their entitlement, sentimental self-pity, xenophobia, English (not British) patriotism, and, above all, by their constant tendency to fly into a rage that leaves them scarlet in the face. Johnson, apoplectic at the thought of losing prawn crisps, made himself gammon-in-chief. Gammon is the antithesis of a health food, strong in flavour and salt and fat. Gammon is also, relatively, a cheap food. It’s the kind of food that used to leaven a diet mostly composed of tasteless carbohydrates like potato or boiled grains.

Prawn cocktail crisps, unlike gammon, are an ersatz imitation of something you might order in a restaurant. Admittedly, public schoolboys have always eaten more than their fair share of junk food, and there may actually be a natural bond between the working classes and the upper classes: both dislike the interfering, puritanical middle-class who are always trying to curtail other people’s pleasures “for their own good”.

Johnson’s prawn cocktail crisps campaign was also the beginning of the campaign of restorative nostalgia that has brought him to Downing Street. In her new book, Twilight of Democracy, Anne Applebaum pinpoints restorative nostalgia as central to the appeal of the new nationalist right in Poland, Spain and Hungary, and also in the United Kingdom. Drawing on the work of Svetlana Boym, Appelbaum explains that restorative nostalgics do not want to contemplate or learn from the past; they want “the cartoon version of history, and they want to live in it, right now”.

Their narrative goes like this: the nation is no longer great because someone has attacked us, undermined us, sapped our strength. Someone — the immigrants, the foreigners, the elites, or indeed the EU — has perverted the course of history and reduced the nation to a shadow of its former self. The essential identity that it once had has been taken away. This, this election, this referendum, is the last chance to save the country — therefore, it doesn’t matter what lies are told. “The European Union wants to kill our cuppa,” said one Facebook advert during the referendum campaign, in keeping with Johnson’s own hit parade of “Threat to British pink sausages” or “EC cheese row takes the biscuit.” It is essential to restorative nostalgia that it should be constantly enraged by a non-existent threat to a fictional national distinctiveness.

Yet this meticulously created identity has been brought to the brink of collapse by Johnson’s view of food in the light of his new obesity strategy, a strategy that appears to include banning junk-food advertising before 9pm, adding calorie counts to menus, and ensuring easier and greater access to NHS weight-loss programmes. His sudden zeal for weight loss is widely portrayed by his erstwhile supporters not as a rational political choice, but as an emotional response born of fear, even panic; in short, his experience as a Covid-19 victim.

This new war is understood as a sign of weakness: “the weight thing has really spooked him,” said a friend. There’s something in this — it is the kind of jumping to conclusions on insufficient data that has characterised the government’s response to the pandemic, since the link between severe Covid-19 requiring hospitalisation and obesity is more a hypothesis than a proven truth, a point Dominic Lawson makes in The Sunday Times. However, like others, he directs most of his criticism at Johnson for his U-turn on government advice, aligning the new campaign with previous Labour governments. Gordon Brown, he recalls, tried to ban Bogofs (“Buy One, Get One Free”) in 2008, but “it didn’t happen then and it won’t now”. Lawson also points out that Johnson once scoffed at what he saw as the “nanny state”, ridiculing veganism as a crime against cheese-lovers and promising that Brexit would not interrupt supply lines of Mars Bars and crisps.

Johnson was also volubly sceptical about David Cameron’s anti-obesity campaign. The Daily Mail concurred: “Boris is becoming the new Ed Miliband.” (Much more to the taste of the Mail is “McDonald’s for breakfast… and Nando’s for dinner!: Diners celebrate Rishi’s Eat Out To Help Out.) In 2006 Johnson told the Conservative Party Conference: “If I was in charge, I would get rid of Jamie Oliver and tell people to eat what they like.” Backing “pie-pushing mums”, he told the conference that there was “too much pressure” on children to eat healthily: “I say let people eat what they like. Why shouldn’t they push pies through railings?”

From early in his political career, Johnson set out his stall as a man who loves food but doesn’t care what it is. In 2008, he revealed to the Observer that his favourite breakfast was cold spaghetti or leftover birthday cake, though he would make do with a slice of toast and marmalade if necessary. Ingenuously, he said: “I don’t snack apart from a few chocolate croissants mid-morning to keep the wolf from the door.” He must have known that these were fire-eating words. However, and disarmingly, he may have meant them; he went on to say: “I think all food is delicious. I just can’t understand why people go on and on about it, especially restaurant critics. I mean, food is good, isn’t it?” Just what his followers want to hear.

There is something very strange about this account — its complete indifference to choice or quality or even thought. It’s as if eating pleasure depends on never discriminating, as if the only good eating is led entirely by appetite. Is this even remotely plausible? Or is it an uncomfortable image of the people that Johnson believes are hanging on his words? It is commonplace for the ruling class to see the people below them as undiscriminating bellies or mouths, gobbling down whatever rubbish is put in front of them by manufacturers.

Perhaps Johnson himself no longer knows — if he ever did — whether he really likes prawn cocktail crisps or whether it’s what he expects his popular audience to like. He liked what they represent: the idea of eating at random, eating without rules, without an inner censorious voice. And yet he is now in danger of becoming that censor.

Perhaps Johnson thinks he can now rein in that unbridled eating — his own, or that of other prawn cocktail crisp fanciers — by pointing out what everyone has known from the beginning, that this kind of eating is digging your grave with your teeth.


Diane Purkiss is a professor at Oxford University. Her book, The English Civil War: A People’s History, was published by HarperCollins.


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Paul Blakemore
Paul Blakemore
4 years ago

I will say to begin with that I am an admirer of Diane Purkiss’ history of the English Civil War and Anne Applebaum’s histories of Eastern Europe under communism; but am unconvinced by this notion of ”restorative nostalgia”. It is the type of attitude attributed to Brexiters by Remainers, so should immediately be treated with extreme scepticism. To me the central issue of the Brexit vote was putting the brakes on a direction of travel – ever-closer union within the EU – and restoring sovereignty, not restoring some fictional idealised view of the past. Most people, I believe, are well aware that we live in the present and are stuck with it: but shaping the future is something we can, and should, participate in.
I find Matthew Goodwin’s explanation for Boris Johnson’s popularity more convincing than the one posited here (Why Boris Johnson keeps on winning).
I doubt Johnson will succeed in slimming down the British people, sadly. As for prawn cocktail crisps; I’m not a fan.

Jeremy Smith
Jeremy Smith
4 years ago
Reply to  Paul Blakemore

Few years back (Sunday politics show) Andrew Neil interviewed the leader of the local UKIP party (some sea resort town, I don’t remember the name). Her argument was: when i grew up here (50s/60s) people used to come for vacation. No one comes anymore. Government should do something about it.
When asked to provide possible solutions she couldn’t. Her position was pure nostalgia…unless of course she was lying.
And her position explains why so many left behind areas voted Leave.
Blackpool didn’t vote leave because it truly understand the Lisbon Treaty and its impact on the British constitution., unlike Oxbridge.
There is a reason why older people voted overwhelmingly Leave, and younger people overwhelming voted Remain. Who is looking forward to the future?

dianepurkiss
dianepurkiss
4 years ago
Reply to  Jeremy Smith

Yes, precisely. Nobody thinks restorative nostalgia explains every Brexit vote, but it does explain some of them.

Adrian
Adrian
4 years ago
Reply to  dianepurkiss

Have to give you an upvote for bravery.
Reading the comments attached to your article is rather reckless mind.

dianepurkiss
dianepurkiss
4 years ago
Reply to  Adrian

I strongly believe in debate and discussion.

Paul Blakemore
Paul Blakemore
4 years ago
Reply to  Jeremy Smith

Doubtless the UKIP representative’s attitude combined nostalgia for a remembered past with a not unreasonable desire for the government to do something to revive the area’s economy to create a better future for the entire community. There are hundreds/thousands of sadly decayed seaside resort towns across the country (though on the coast, obv) and our best political minds (haha) have for generations failed to provide a solution for their plight.
The Oxford students/graduates I’ve met knew or cared little for the Lisbon Treaty and its IOTBC; but they did take frequent holidays to Europe, often staying in their parents’ Euro holiday homes, and would hate to suffer the inconvenience of having to queue to get to them.

Young people who voted to remain in the EU did so for the perceived benefits the bloc delivers to them. Doubtless many of the young who live in seaside towns voted leave; or they have left to build themselves a future elsewhere. I’m not sure if the actual numbers of young/old votes for leave/remain could honestly be described as ‘overwhelming’, though, I agree the difference is significant.
Both sides are looking to the future; but from radically different places.

Jeremy Smith
Jeremy Smith
4 years ago
Reply to  Paul Blakemore

“Both sides are looking to the future”
But, one side will not be around for the future.

Fraser Bailey
Fraser Bailey
4 years ago
Reply to  Jeremy Smith

I have absolutely no doubt that the older people who voted Leave had a much greater understanding of the Lisbon Treaty than the younger people who voted Remain.

Jeremy Smith
Jeremy Smith
4 years ago
Reply to  Fraser Bailey

Yes, they were gloriously fighting WW2 ( in 2016) led by Field Marshall Bill Cash.

JR Stoker
JR Stoker
4 years ago
Reply to  Jeremy Smith

Ah, the old “Leavers are stupid, idiots, thick, haven’t read the small print,” Lobby rises again. Thought it had gone a bit quiet

Jeremy Smith
Jeremy Smith
4 years ago
Reply to  JR Stoker

Ian Duncan Smith, MP, Elected by the British people and former Leader of the Tory Party. And a Leaver:

His Tweet , August 3, 2020
“. But it gets worse. Buried in the fine print, unnoticed by many, is the fact we remain hooked into the EU’s loan book.”
Parliament Speech, 2019
“The reality is if there is anything about this arrangement that we have now not debated, thrashed to death, I’d love to know what it is.”

“haven’t read the small print,” the irony of your comment!

Mark Corby
Mark Corby
4 years ago
Reply to  Jeremy Smith

Well obviously not the young! Did you when you were young?

dianepurkiss
dianepurkiss
4 years ago
Reply to  Paul Blakemore

I read the Goodwin piece and found it unconvincing. Thank you for your kind words about the English Civil War.

Paul Blakemore
Paul Blakemore
4 years ago
Reply to  dianepurkiss

Just between you and me, I gave my copy of your book to a young author who was researching what has turned out to be a rather wonderful novel about the Manningtree Witches; which will be published next March.

dianepurkiss
dianepurkiss
4 years ago
Reply to  Paul Blakemore

There’s nothing I love more than inspiring historical fiction. Thank you for this.

nick harman
nick harman
4 years ago

Boris’s articles were intended to be witty, humorous, a bit of hyperbole, some irony, a lot of tongue in cheek, some nose-tweaking of people who believe being serious all the time makes them look smart.

I very much doubt he actually likes prawn cocktail crisps, but it was fun to pretend he did. And it was a peg to hang a fun piece on

Fun. The author of this piece should try having some now and then.

Paul Blakemore
Paul Blakemore
4 years ago
Reply to  nick harman

I was with you all the way until your last paragraph; why do people need to be so bitchy.

dianepurkiss
dianepurkiss
4 years ago
Reply to  nick harman

Thankfully not all of us enjoy the same things.

Paul Blakemore
Paul Blakemore
4 years ago

To return to idea of ”restorative nostalgia” with regard to Poland’s past, for example: I mean, crikey. Unless we are talking about a wish to return to the golden days of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, surely Poland’s history has been an endless story of oppression by its more powerful neighbours (since the 18th century at least). Apart from periods of independence between 1919 and 1939, and the post-communist era since 1989, I’m not sure where this nostalgia would come from; unless it is nostalgia for a Parisian garret in the 19th century in which one can plot a romantic uprising against the Russians/Prussians or Austrians.
If the nostalgia is for aspects of the recent post-communist era then surely the EU and its supporters, and Poland’s liberal political parties, should understand and try to address these issues; just as Britain’s politicians should examine the issues behind ‘populist nostalgia’ here, rather than simply dismissing the nostalgics as thick ‘gammons’ (an utterly vile term) harking for the past. If the pace and nature of change is alienating so many Poles, Britons, Spaniards etc, perhaps it is time to look more thoughtfully at how these changes are impacting on people’s lives and be more honest about these negative impacts.

Jeremy Smith
Jeremy Smith
4 years ago
Reply to  Paul Blakemore

“..Poland’s history has been an endless story of oppression by its more powerful neighbors..”
Sorry Paul, Poland played the game of Great Powers and it lost. If you ignore the days of Polish expansion toward Eastern Orthodox territories you are right.
– EU is extremely popular with Polish people – at least according to every single poll. PiS has made it very clear that is fully committed to EU membership.
– EU is very popular in Spain too, again polls.

Paul Blakemore
Paul Blakemore
4 years ago
Reply to  Jeremy Smith

I presume the days of Polish expansion to which you refer preceded the 18th century and the rise of Russia, or perhaps you refer to the brief war with Russia in 1921(?); anyway I am no expert on Polish history…
I’m commenting on this idea of ”restorative nostalgia” rather than suggesting any desire on the part of Poland or Spain to reject the EU; or any wish on my part that they should do so. It dismisses the concerns of so-called populists without any consideration of what is really going on: they are simply a bit stupid, and yearn for a ”cartoon version of history… right now”. I was asking; what version of history are Polish populists yearning for exactly? If people want to support the EU then by all means do so; but try to understand your fellow Europeans rather than denigrating them.
BTW, the ”sorry Paul” is extremely patronising, and unnecessary.

Mark Corby
Mark Corby
4 years ago
Reply to  Paul Blakemore

Poland’s era of greatness can said to have started in 1386, when the Grand Duke of Lithuania, converted to Catholicism, and married the Polish Princess, thus uniting the two states.
There first triumph was to hammer the wretched Teutonic Knights into the ground at Grunwald (Tannenberg) in 1410 ( five years before Agincourt for us).

By the treaty of Lublin in 1569 a full, formal federal union was established, the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, considered to be one of greatest states in contemporary Europe. Perhaps their ultimate triumph was to capture Moscow in 1610 and hold it for two years. Their famous military formations were the regiments of ‘Winged Hussars’.

Sadly thanks to an astonishingly selfish aristocracy and an utterly absurd governmental system things then went rapidly downhill, resulting in the first partition in 1772, the second in 1793 and final extinction in 1795

However, ultimately, the corpse was resuscitated after 124 years in 1919.

Dr Anne Kelley
Dr Anne Kelley
4 years ago

It’s one thing to express populist views when there are no repercussions, a quite different matter when you need to take responsibility for the welfare of the population. In fairness to Boris Johnson, he has accepted that he needs to be a serious politician in his current role, and I do believe he is doing his best. The Government’s policies will please some, others not so much – more or less the same as every other Government I have lived through.

nick harman
nick harman
4 years ago
Reply to  Dr Anne Kelley

It’s one thing to be a journalist and another a PM

Warren Alexander
Warren Alexander
4 years ago

Johnson has gone from Battling Boris to Nanny Doris in the blink of an eye

Cheryl Jones
Cheryl Jones
4 years ago

It’s funny that ‘identity’ is seen as parochial and backward if championed by (white) native Brits yet these same people will extol the importance and virtues of black or other foreign identity over our own and see it as an imperative to preserve, reclaim and champion them, without any irony whatsoever.

bob alob
bob alob
4 years ago

I don’t really see the point of this article, Johnson has different responsibilities now he has become prime minister, and over the past months he has also been in close contact with medical professionals, experts and advisers, having been severely affected by the virus himself, not surprisingly he has changed on the food subject.
I would’t class Boris Johnson as a Gammon either, he is too “posh”, the insult is normally used to describe people more working class by those re moaners who believe they know better than rest of us.

Nick Faulks
Nick Faulks
4 years ago
Reply to  bob alob

The article defines my own feelings perfectly. I voted for Boris with great enthusiasm for his freewheeling libertarianism, but after his spell in hospital he has turned into a crazed and capricious despot. I have not been so disappointed by a politician in fifty years.

The latest idea, that because he has decided he is too fat the whole country must go on a diet, is just the most blatant and ludicrous indication.

tomscott444
tomscott444
4 years ago
Reply to  Nick Faulks

Yes agreed. Sadly Johnson has massively let us down and the Tories would be toast if only there was a less worse option.

Johnson looks like a man who really really wanted to be PM but doesn’t have the intelligence to govern.

bob alob
bob alob
4 years ago
Reply to  Nick Faulks

From what I can gather, these types of measures never have much of an effect on obesity, like those before him he is just picking at the problem.

nick harman
nick harman
4 years ago
Reply to  bob alob

Indeed the whole thing is class war except the working classes are not on the offensive, or being as offensive, as the London middle classes

tomscott444
tomscott444
4 years ago

The obesity strategy won’t work because these ideas have been tried before and they never work. Banning advertising will just see the end of many of our commercial TV channels.

Banning BOGOFs won’t work either because they will simply become, buy two, get both half price, or whatever. That’s business – its their job to sell stuff.

However, easy access to NHS weight loss services may well help.

The lesson is, offer help to people that want it, leave those alone who are happy to be jellybottoms and leave those of us alone who enjoy the occasional BOGOF cream cakes.

Trevor Q
Trevor Q
4 years ago

What a load of nonsense.

Stan Lenartowicz
Stan Lenartowicz
4 years ago
Reply to  Trevor Q

What is? Be specific, give examples…4/10 Must try harder!

Adrian
Adrian
4 years ago
Reply to  Trevor Q

Are you the sort of guy who farts loudly during a Jazz concert?
Whether the music in question is sublime or “experimental” the effort put in to the performance should at least be respected.

dianepurkiss
dianepurkiss
4 years ago
Reply to  Trevor Q

Happy to discuss – I suggest you start.

Trevor Q
Trevor Q
4 years ago
Reply to  dianepurkiss

I’ll start by saying I voted remain in the referendum and the result shocked me. I was not however prepared to to accept that the majority in favour were were stupid or prejudiced etc and I set out to educate myself. The most convincing explanation I found was in David Goodhart’s book ‘The Road to Somewhere’ and in my opinion subsequent events have borne this out. The liberal elite have overreached themselves.
I have been dismayed that a vocal number of remain voters have been unable to see past their own self interest but rather maintain a false narrative trying to dismiss the very real concerns of the majority of the population with sneering condescension. For example calling people ‘gammon’ and talking about ‘restorative nostalgia’. I have lived in a few of these communities and the people who live there deserve respect not derision. They don’t hark back to the good old days because they know they were hard but they value their communities and their localities. I spent part of my childhood in the Rother valley in the heyday of Arthur Scargill and the idea that those those communities would ever vote tory was fanciful so what has made them? It is not because they are idiots or bigots but because they are decent principled people whose interests have been trivialised and demeaned to a level where a discussion focuses on the merits or otherwise of prawn cocktail crisps.
A serious debate on how to restore some sort of balance and fairness and tolerance and respect would be helpful but it needs to start with facts rather than hyperbole.

Jeremy Smith
Jeremy Smith
4 years ago
Reply to  Trevor Q

Surely gammon is not as offensive as traitor.
Their interests have not been trivialized, vast amount of money is transferred to the Left Behind areas from London (mostly) and SE England.
The sad reality is that there is little than any government can do about the Left Behind areas. Unless you make vacations in the Med illegal how are you going to fix Blackpool and Co?
If I run for MP in Blackpool and HONESTLY tell the people that there isn’t much I (we) can do about the city how many of them will vote for me?

Alex Mitchell
Alex Mitchell
4 years ago
Reply to  Trevor Q

I think the ‘red wall’ turnaround is an interesting factor. Many commentators have talked about Russian interference and facebook manipulation to explain the election result. How any (sane) intelligent person could possibly think that die-hard long-term labour constituencies could vote blue based on some social media posts is beyond me. Previously, they wouldn’t have voted Tory if someone paid them, let alone ‘influenced’ them. Only a radical and obvious abandonment by Labour can account for it.

dianepurkiss
dianepurkiss
4 years ago
Reply to  Trevor Q

Thank you for coming back – I respect what you say, though I don’t think it refutes what I wrote. I am no more at ease with globalisation than you are. I might have voted Leave if it had been a campaign against the pursuit of higher and higher levels of GDP. It’s not foolish to be a somewhere. The issue is more why some Somewheres have faith in Johnson, who seems to me more of an Anywhere.

To be clear, I’m not saying I think this is foolish! I disagree with many things that are NOT stupid, and I am not all-knowing.

And I couldn’t bring myself to vote for Corbyn…

Cheryl Jones
Cheryl Jones
4 years ago
Reply to  Trevor Q

Agree. I voted Remain too but accepted the result. The 4 years since have horrified me so much and led me to really read up on some things, and I’ve changed my mind. I think the public’s instincts were spot on and I was a coward who fell for project fear. Remoaners – you have no one to blame but yourselves.