The latest and most politically correct series of BBC TV’s hit show, The Great British Bake Off, concludes tomorrow, and the Prime Minister has named his favourite to win.
From a cast described as “fashionable minorities” by Quentin Letts of The Daily Mail – “Bloke with tattoos, check. Muslim with a headscarf, check. Househusband, check. Afro-Caribbean, check… more multicultural and right on than a Benetton catalogue” – the Prime Minister has let it be known who he is championing.
It’s not “heartthrob” Tamal Ray (pictured left above), the trainee anaesthetist working at a hospital in Manchester who recently told the Radio Times “I wouldn’t have a girlfriend, I would have a boyfriend” when asked if he was available.
It’s not Ian Cumming, househusband, travel photographer and the man with “the honour of being the Dalai Lama’s personal snapper when he visits the UK”.
No, the contestant the Prime Minister will be backing when he sits down tomorrow night after his party conference to watch the final with his family is another symbol of progressive Britain, Nadiya Hussain, the first woman to wear a hijab on the show. He admiringly describes her as “cool under pressure”, reports The Independent.
The full-time mother, who lives in Leeds with her husband and three children, will be grateful for the support. She was initially wary of how she might do. No doubt with comments such as that from Quentin Letts (“Licence fee-payers will have, as the saying goes, their prejudices challenged. See? Muslim folk love Chelsea buns, too.”) in mind, according to The Independent she was worried her headscarf would be a problem for some viewers:
“I was a bit nervous that perhaps people would look at me, a Muslim in a headscarf, and wonder if I could bake.
“But I hope that people have realised that I can — and just because I’m not a stereotypical British person, it doesn’t mean that I am not into bunting, cake and tea.
“I’m just as British as anyone else, and I hope I have proved that.”
With the Prime Minister outing himself as one of the most prominent ‘Nadiyators’ in the country, she must be hopeful her stunning bakes and famed facial expressions will see her through to a win.