When Boris Johnson first declared “My policy on cake is pro having it and pro eating it”, he was assumed to be indulging in a piece of political whimsy. But “cakeism”, as this approach became known, is present throughout the Prime Minister’s political agenda. In garnering support for his Brexit deal, he promised the European Union, the Republic of Ireland and the British Parliament that there would be no physical border between the south and north of Ireland. He also claimed, though more sotto voce, that there would be no border between Northern Ireland and the mainland of Britain. The first was the cake; the second, eating it.

This does not really translate into the colourless idiom-free version of English which most international politicians and bureaucrats can speak. They would certainly not understand, therefore, how the cake turns out to be a chilled sausage. A battle over the importation of processed meat from Scotland to Northern Ireland has plunged the relationship between the United Kingdom and the EU into the deep freeze, with talk of barriers and sanctions, even blockades. The media eagerly proclaims a sausage war.