Ed Miliband has said Kemi Badenoch needs to discover the “delights” of a bacon sarnie after the Tory leader dismissed sandwiches as not “real food”.
The Energy Secretary was famously photographed eating a bacon sandwich in 2014, when he was leader of the opposition.
Mrs Badenoch said she occasionally has a steak brought in for lunch as she discussed her eating habits in an interview with the Spectator magazine published this week.
She claimed that sandwiches were “what you have for breakfast” and that she “will not touch bread if it’s moist”.
Sir Keir Starmer meanwhile is “quite happy with a sandwich lunch” and is partial to a “tuna sandwich and occasionally a cheese toastie”, his official spokesman said in response.
Number 10 defended the sandwich as a “great British institution” which brings in £8 billion a year to the UK economy.
Mr Miliband was asked about Mrs Badenoch’s comments on Sky News after he “famously battled with a bacon sandwich about 10 years ago”.
“I’m here for the sandwich content,” he said.
He added: “I wish I could have a cross-party consensus here with Kemi Badenoch, but I can’t. You know, I think I need to persuade her of the delights of a bacon sandwich.”
The then-Labour leader was widely considered to look awkward in the image.
It was used on the front page of a newspaper the next year during the 2015 General Election, which Labour lost.
I don’t think sandwiches are a real food, it’s what you have for breakfast. I will not touch bread if it’s moist
As recently as last month, he was mocked in the House of Commons for the sandwich incident.
“I was under the impression that the Secretary of State for Energy was a slightly clownish figure, unable to eat a bacon sandwich without causing an international incident and with a political style closely modelled on that of Wallace and Gromit,” Shadow Commons leader Jesse Norman joked.
In an interview published on Thursday, Tory leader Mrs Badenoch had said: “What’s a lunch break? Lunch is for wimps. I have food brought in and I work and eat at the same time. There’s no time… Sometimes I will get a steak… I’m not a sandwich person.”
She added: “I don’t think sandwiches are a real food, it’s what you have for breakfast. I will not touch bread if it’s moist.”
Former Conservative prime minister Rishi Sunak previously described himself as a “big sandwich person”, telling reporters during the 2024 election campaign that a “club sandwich” was one of his favourites.
Ms Badenoch swiftly attacked the Prime Minister’s response to her remarks in a post on social media, writing: “The PM has time to respond to my jokes about lunch… but no time for the farmers who produce our food.
“He refused to answer questions because he doesn’t care. It’s an ideological attack on farmers and will destroy lives.
“The Conservatives will reverse his cruel family farm tax.”
