David Cameron this morning pitched headfirst into the sort of journalistic bear trap politicians are told to watch out for from day one. The prime minister admitted on LBC 97.3 Radio that he didn’t know the price of a value loaf of bread, revealing – better yet – that he made his own with a bread maker.

“I don’t buy the value sliced loaf. I’ve got a breadmaker at home which I delight in using,” Cameron said. When pressed on how much he thought a value loaf might be, he replied: “You can buy a loaf in a supermarket for well north of a pound.” Host Nick Ferrari quickly informed him the true cost was 47p (a somewhat unfair question, you might think; I bet Ferrari had to look the actual price up).

This being radio, you’ll have to imagine the look of dread and despair on the prime minister’s face as he realised he hadn’t got to that bit of his daily crib sheet that includes bread prices. But he really had no excuse: Ferrari was simply riffing on a question chucked at Boris Johnson on yesterday’s Newsnight, about the price of a pint of milk. The London mayor plumped for 80p, only to be informed it was nearer 40p. “Well, there you go, I don’t know how much a pint of milk costs. So what?” Boris retorted.

So what, indeed? Personally, I applaud Cameron for ‘fessing up – after all, if he had known the price of a loaf, cynics would simply say he’s briefed on these things (ie. he can’t win). And isn’t it laudable that the prime minister says he wants his kids to eat granary bread and make it themselves (“It takes 30 seconds to put the ingredients in! I’d recommend the Panasonic bread maker,” he added). It’s better for them, and teaches them greater appreciation of the work that goes into baking. Plus, the Camerons are perfectly on trend with the Great British Bake-Off phenomenon (just last week, Waitrose attributed a 12% rise in sales of home baking products to the GBBO effect).

The flipside, of course, is that such confessions make it easy as pie (more baking!) to portray the Tories as out of touch with Joe Public – at a time when Labour are pushing hard on the ‘cost of living crisis’.

For all the scepticism about whether Ed Miliband’s energy price freeze could be made to work, there’s no denying it’s an eye-catching policy that’s easy to get. It has allowed Miliband to show that he understands where consumers (that is, voters) are hurting the most: in the pocket. By comparison, Cameron is blasé about the cost of living because he doesn’t even buy bread like your average mortal shopper.

Perhaps the prime minister needs to get out more – or perhaps he needs to subscribe to The Grocer, and read our regular reports on retail prices, as well as our Grocer 33 shopping survey. It wouldn’t cost him much more than a bread maker.

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