Good comedy is all in the timing. Just as we prepare for gluttony — the average calorie intake on Christmas day is said to be 6,000 — the European Court of Justice has decided that obesity can, in certain work situations, constitute a disability.
But perhaps only the membership secretary of Ukip is laughing. It is fairly breathtaking to suggest that people who eat too much should be entitled to the same consideration as the genuinely disabled.
Imagine a morbidly obese twentysomething, after years of great gallantry and doggedness in the cake shop, being entitled to the same rights as a soldier with several limbs blown away in Afghanistan. Or your average middle-aged fattie claiming Stephen Hawking’s parking space.
At the heart of this indelicate