Eric Pickles and Jeremy Paxman mock Osborne’s Byron burger shot

Chancellor George Osborne’s decision to tweet a photo of him eating a Byron burger on Tuesday night has caused a rash of parodies, with Cabinet colleague Eric Pickles and Newsnight host Jeremy Paxman joining in.

Just as Osborne enjoyed his burger when finishing off his spending review speech, Paxman was shown putting his own “final touches” to the script for Wednesday’s Newsnight. Instead of a posh burger, Paxman appears to be enjoying swan.

Paxman: Putting final touches to tonight’s #newsnightscripts pic.twitter.com/1hmBWD9cdt

— BBC Newsnight (@BBCNewsnight) June 27, 2013

This came after Communities Secretary Eric Pickles made his own joke in putting out a photo of him “putting final touches” to a speech he was going to deliver to the Local Government Association. His food of choice? A salad.

Putting final touches to the LGA speech #lgaconf13pic.twitter.com/ls9ZWDz3rM

— Eric Pickles (@EricPickles) June 27, 2013

Osborne responded to this barb by supportively retweeting Pickles’ post and commenting “Nice one Eric”. This may have come as a reaction to Osborne poking fun at Pickles’ weight in offering back-handed praise to the minister as a “model of lean government” in his spending review speech.

Nice one Eric

— George Osborne (@George_Osborne) June 27, 2013