Mugs game: what does your cup say about you?

Rishi Sunak found himself in hot water last week, though fortunately it was not too hot. Just the right temperature, in fact. The Chancellor was photographed at his desk with a £180 ‘smart mug’, which keeps his drink somewhere between 50°C and 62.5°C for up to three hours on the move or indefinitely if placed on its charging coaster. Very sensible, you might think; but some thought the picture was revealing. Labour MP Beth Winter was quick to point out that her mug, turquoise and shaped like a dinosaur, had cost just £3. ‘No wonder,’ Winter tweeted, ‘he said no when I asked him this week about a wealth tax.’

Sunak is not the only politician to have had their mug scrutinised as a supposed extension of their personality. In 2018, Boris Johnson brought a tray of tea to reporters outside his house. His assortment of thick-rimmed mugs, including a yellow Cadbury’s Mini Eggs one, was deemed scruffy enough to be posh. By contrast, Michael Gove’s tasteful Emma Bridgewater mugs apparently confirmed his middle class status. Priti Patel, during a Home Affairs Committee remote hearing this week, took a sip from an enormous mug – more of a tankard, really – boldly emblazoned with Union Jacks and symbols of London. The Beefeaters may well have been life size. The Home Secretary was sending a clear message to colleagues: don’t expect a short meeting. 

Johnson’s mug game made the news again last year when a video emerged of an aide snatching a takeaway coffee from his hand. ‘No disposable cups!’ she hissed. Some Indian people take a different view, however.