After surviving his Covid scare in spring 2020, Boris Johnson was positively evangelical about the importance of weight loss. Launching a campaign to cut Britain’s obesity rates in July that year, the Prime Minister told the country that he was ‘way overweight’ when he was hospitalised, backing a war on waistlines to cut the number of Britons entering intensive care units.

Two years on though, Johnson seemed to have cooled on the idea somewhat. Last month, as he battled to save his embattled premiership, he was reported to be considering whether to drop plans to ban ‘buy one, get one free’ deals on junk food, and other anti-obesity measures. Perhaps though that’s for the best, given, er, the snacking habit of our own MPs.

Parliament’s cafeterias don’t do ‘buy one, get one free’ offers but they do get to sell taxpayer-subsided food to hungry parliamentarians and their staff. Given the new spirit of self-denial sweeping Whitehall, Mr S thought he’d crunch the numbers in Westminster to see just what kind of confectionery and snacks our political masters are consuming.

A Freedom of Information request for each of the 100 most-purchased items between December 2020 and November 2021 found at least £257,000 had been spent on more than a quarter of a million items: a figure that would be far higher had Parliament not been virtual for much of the past year. While bottles of healthy still water came top, KitKats proved to be one of the most chocolate treats with more than 5,000 being purchased – the equivalent of 14 a day – costing some £3,412.

Elsewhere, despite a recipe change to reduce its sugar content, sales of Irn Bru to thirsty SNP members clearly didn’t decline as more than 3,000 cans of the stuff were bought last year, bringing in £2,342 worth of revenue to the parliamentary coffers.

If Boris does ever plan to renew his junk food crusade, will he start by lecturing his own MPs on their chocolate-loving ways?