Brussels has taken a keen interest in the name of the nation’s favourite crisp, and Westminster is not amused. Following a post-Brexit deal on food standards, officials are reportedly weighing whether a packet labelled smoky bacon can keep that name if the flavour is not, strictly speaking, bacon, and the product is not, strictly speaking, a crisp in the sense the bloc’s paperwork intends. Nobody has yet explained what counts as smoky, and the diplomatic cables are getting long.
The mechanism, as far as anyone can follow it, goes like this: a rule written for cheese in one country gets applied to ham in another, a committee notes that the flavour sachet contains no pig, and a junior official in a glass building is handed a bag of crisps and asked to rule on it. Ministers on both sides have reportedly been summoned to a meeting about it. Someone has already suggested renaming the product ‘salt and vinegar, but sadder’, which is the sort of compromise that has ended lesser treaties.
What this means for you: nothing about your tea changes tonight. Keep buying what you like. If anyone asks you to pick a side in the Great Crisp Dispute, the correct answer is to read the back of the packet, then go back to the sofa.