David Cameron's re-election campaign, in one photo

(Image credit: Twitter/Belfast Telegraph)

British Prime Minister David Cameron is in the midst of a tight campaign for re-election, in which the dominant issue is the state of the economy and his Conservative Party's promise to impose more austerity measures. But as Americans know all too well, the political circus has a way of changing the subject to less weighty affairs, such as Cameron's unfortunate decision to publicly eat a hot dog with a knife and fork, which has undercut his attempts to play the everyman out on the campaign trail (and, it must be said, understandably so). His saving grace is that he is hardly alone in the awkward eating department — he is joined by his main opponent, Labour Party leader Ed Miliband, whose struggles with a bacon sandwich are now the stuff of legend.

So focused has the race become on the candidates' eating habits, Adam Taylor of The Washington Post reports, that everyone is out to prove their gustatory bona fides, wolfing down haggis, beer, and, yes, bacon sandwiches, sometimes referred to as a bacon butty.