I cannot say that I am a big fan of Anthony Worrall Thompson……the TV Chef. He always struck me as a rather nasty and unpleasant person. My worst suspicions were confirmed when I discovered that he is a high profile donor to the (British) Conservative Party.

Put simply…it is impossible to be “nice” and bea “Conservative”. The two words do not even belong in the same sentence. So I have not taken his ongoing financial and other problems too seriously.

Yet it is almost impossible not to sympathise with him in his latest fall from grace. A police caution for stealing cheese and wine from Tescos (in upmarket Henley-on-Thames) on no less than five occasions in two weeks.

Certainly his apology to family and friends and his wish to get “the treatment I clearly need” is genuine. And in the circumstances a police caution is the right decision rather than a court case. But I have to wonder whether the same justice would be given to a young woman……perhaps from Eastern Europe who stole a loaf to feed her family. Probably not.