Crumbs! Biscuit museum’s Jaffa Cake display reignites old debate
It could be described as a storm in a teacup but the humble Jaffa Cake is once again at the centre of controversy after McVitie’s asked a biscuit museum to pull the snack from a display.The manufacturer took issue with the orangey treat being showcased in a museum devoted to biscuits because, for VAT purposes anyway, it is officially a cake.This fact was settled long ago in a legal battle with the taxman.The David and Goliath-style row – which some suggested had been orchestrated by McVitie’s to boost sales – has reignited the debate.Days after the biscuit museum in Bermondsey, south London, unveiled the display, McVitie’s sent it a cease-and-desist-style letter requesting “the immediate removal of Jaffa Cakes from your biscuit exhibit”.
However, it sought to sweeten the pill by diluting the legalese with biscuit-based puns.“We write to you today, not with crumbs of animosity, but with a full slice of firm objection,” it wrote.“Allow us to be clear: Jaffa Cakes are, in fact, cakes.Some would say the clue is in the name on the box.”McVitie’s and the biscuit museum, officially called the Peek Frean Museum, said they were yet to agree on a resolution.
The museum’s curator, Gary Magold, said, “It’s a shame – we’ve had to remove the exhibition for the moment.We’re hoping we can reach an agreement.”The subtleties of the “is it a cake or biscuit?” debate have likely filled many a tea break but the tax law is clear: biscuits are zero-rated, but as soon as the makers start covering them with chocolate they attract 20% VAT.This was at the heart of the Jaffa Cakes case, which came to a head in 1991.HM Customs & Excise (the predecessor of HMRC) said they were biscuits, and that their chocolatey topping was taxable.
The manufacturer McVitie’s insisted they were cakes, which are zero-rated.It won, and those smashing orangey bits can be enjoyed tax-free.This week’s skirmish lit up social media message boards.One poster tried to shut the debate down, stating: “A biscuit goes soft when you leave it out.A cake goes hard.
There’s your answer.”Others questioned whether there was a darker subtext.“They just want to hide how much the thing have [sic] shrunk – shrinkflation strikes again.”In recent years Jaffa Cake fans have faced diminishing returns.Not only has the number in the box reduced but two years ago the “cakes” shrank in size from 5.
5cm to 5cm across.The orange bump became smaller, too.
‘A billion people backing you’: China transfixed as Musk turns against Trump
Few break-ups have as many gossiping observers as the fallout between the once inseparable Donald Trump and Elon Musk.The ill-fated bromance between the US president and the world’s richest man, which once raised questions about American oligarchy, is now being pored over by social media users in China, many of whom are Team Musk.The latest drama comes from Musk’s pledge to found a new political party, the America party, if Trump’s sweeping tax and spending bill, which Musk described as “insane” passed the Senate this week (it did). Musk had already vowed to unseat lawmakers who backed Trump’s flagship piece of legislation, which is expected to increase US national debt by $3.3tn
AI companies start winning the copyright fight
Hello, and welcome to TechScape. If you need me after this newsletter publishes, I will be busy poring over photos from Jeff Bezos and Lauren Sanchez’s wedding, the gaudiest and most star-studded affair to disrupt technology news this year. I found it a tacky and spectacular affair. Everyone who was anyone was there, except for Charlize Theron, who, unprompted, said on Monday: “I think we might be the only people who did not get an invite to the Bezos wedding. But that’s OK, because they suck and we’re cool
China hosts first fully autonomous AI robot football match
They think it’s all over … for human footballers at least.The pitch wasn’t the only artificial element on display at a football match in China on Saturday. Four teams of humanoid robots took on each other in Beijing, in games of three-a-side powered by artificial intelligence.While the modern game has faced accusations of becoming near-robotic in its obsession with tactical perfection, the games in China showed that AI won’t be taking Kylian Mbappé’s job just yet.Footage of the humanoid kickabout showed the robots struggling to kick the ball or stay upright, performing pratfalls that would have earned their flesh-and-blood counterparts a yellow card for diving
Whitehall’s ambition to cut costs using AI is fraught with risk
A Dragons’ Den-style event this week, where tech companies will have 20 minutes to pitch ideas for increasing automation in the British justice system, is one of numerous examples of how the cash-strapped Labour government hopes artificial intelligence and data science can save money and improve public services.Amid warnings from critics that Downing Street has been “drinking the Kool-Aid” on AI, the Department of Health and Social Care this week announced an AI early warning system to detect dangerous maternity services after a series of scandals, and Wes Streeting, the health secretary, said he wants one in eight operations to be conducted by a robot within a decade.AI is being used to prioritise actions on the 25,000 pieces of correspondence the Department for Work and Pensions receives each day and to detect potential fraud and error in benefit claims. Ministers even have access to an AI tool that is supposed to provide a “vibe check” on parliamentary opinion to help them weigh the political risks of policy proposals.Again and again, ministers are turning to technology to tackle acute crises that in the past might have been dealt with by employing more staff or investing more money
Musk vows to unseat lawmakers who support Trump’s sweeping spending bill
Elon Musk has vowed to unseat lawmakers who support Donald Trump’s sweeping budget bill, which he has criticized because it would increase the country’s deficit by $3.3tn.“Every member of Congress who campaigned on reducing government spending and then immediately voted for the biggest debt increase in history should hang their head in shame! And they will lose their primary next year if it is the last thing I do on this Earth,” he wrote on his social media platform, X.A few hours later he added that if the “insane spending bill passes, the America Party will be formed the next day”.With these threats, lobbed at lawmakers over social media, the tech billionaire has launched himself back into a rift with the US president he helped prop up
Gov.uk smartphone app to launch with limited functionality
A government app intended to “cut life admin” will be free to download by millions of UK citizens from Tuesday, but its functions will be limited and the cabinet minister in charge has admitted: “The design is not as we would like it to be.”The gov.uk app will be accessible on smartphones for people aged 16 and over and is intended to be the main mobile hub for many citizen interactions with the government, although not the NHS or HM Revenue and Customs.Peter Kyle, the secretary of state for science and technology, said the version launched this week would only steer users to existing government webpages, with more functionality to be added by the end of the year.A generative artificial intelligence chatbot trained on 700,000 pages of the gov
US adds 147,000 jobs in June, surpassing expectations amid Trump trade war
Reeves’s fearsome challenge: to balance backbenchers and bond markets
AI helps find formula for paint to keep buildings cooler
Google undercounts its carbon emissions, report finds
‘We’ll find another way’: England still believe they can fight back to defeat India
Wimbledon 2025: Draper loses to Cilic, Swiatek beats McNally – as it happened