London--Kitchens have been at the heart of Britain's general election campaign, with party leaders giving confessional, off-the-cuff interviews as they shuffle between the tea cups and the toaster.
Conservative Prime Minister David Cameron, opposition Labour leader Ed Miliband and Deputy PM Nick Clegg of the Liberal Democrats have all been peeling vegetables and doing the washing up in set-piece interviews with the major broadcasters.
In the run-up to Thursday's knife-edge election, British voters have watched "Dave" lovingly wash his cherry tomatoes while preparing the family salad, and "Ed" drinking tea in his ostentatiously modest "kitchenette".
Meanwhile "Nick", joined by his Spanish lawyer wife Miriam, was filmed sipping a glass of white wine while a paella simmered away in the background.
Each time, the ritual was carefully staged, the relaxed setting rigorously observed. Pullovers and shirt sleeves abound. The children are not far away. A show of real life, neatly arranged for the television cameras.
"It's more and more important for politicians to show that they are like ordinary people," said Nick Turnbull, a politics lecturer from the University of Manchester.
"Male candidates in the kitchen is exactly what this is about."
In a country gripped by a relatively new-found passion for cooking driven by celebrity chefs like Jamie Oliver and Gordon Ramsay, the kitchen interview is all about the leaders showing off a modern man image.
It also ties in with highly prevalent television formats.
"The kitchen also relates to the high-profile success of the celebrity chef cookery show," said Dominic Wring, a reader in political communication at Loughborough University.
AFP
