In Redditch, Labour leader Ed Miliband and his shadow Chancellor, Ed Balls, popped into a branch of the local Greggs to exploit the Government's discomfort over the issue. The pair spent £4.70 on eight sausage rolls, highlighting the confusion over when a hot pasty was indeed hot - and thus eligible for VAT under the Chancellor's aim to unify tax on cooked food. "Not just fuel duty going up, child benefit taken away, tax credits being cut, now even putting 20 per cent on the cost of pasties ... And the Chancellor's excuse? He says you can buy them cold and you can avoid the tax," complained Miliband.
Yet if Cameron was hoping he had taken some of the heat out of the debate, he was mistaken. As reporters descended on Leeds station to check the facts, it emerged the last West Cornwall Pasty Company outlet on the concourse had closed five years ago - which means either it served Cameron a very memorable pie or he mis-remembered. A later "clarification" from a Downing St spokesman conceded the location and manufacturer of the mysterious last pasty supper was unknown.
But there were also questions over Balls' passion for the pasty. Recently spotted training in "very tight, unedifying trousers", he has less than a month before he is due to run the London Marathon.
- Independent