Austerity Britain: Cameron's cuppa and Hitler's soup

Would the PM fancy this model?

The Old Etonian political editor of the UK-based American tabloid The Sun, Tom Newton Dunn, exclusively reveals that David Cameron has 'banned tea and coffee being served to No10 mandarins at their desks to save taxpayers' money' in austerity Britain.

An 'insider' (surely not Tory boss spinner Andy Coulson) is quoted as saying: 'The PM is determined that he and his staff should not be enjoying luxuries while the rest of the country is having to make do with less. He wants to prove we really are all in this together.'

However the message is somewhat sullied by this exception: 'But the Prime Minister will still be served at his desk - as his time is deemed too precious to waste queuing.'

Now, don't laugh! There's far too much cynicism abroad (I mean, at home). We should accept that our multi-millionaire PM's heart is in the right place. And his gesture is not unique in the annals of leaders' presentational sensitivity.

Quite by chance I am reading Albert Speer's Inside the Third Reich. On p179 he writes: 'When, at the instance of the party, word was sent out that all households in Germany should eat a one-dish meal on Sundays, thereby promoting guns instead of butter, only a tureen of soup was served at Hitler's table too.' When the number of his lunchtime guests shrank in consequence, Hitler remarked sarcastically 'about the spirit of sacrifice among his associates....'

Goodness knows what the Führer would have made of Cameron's aversion to brew-queuing. Can't someone buy the Old Etonian a teasmade?