THE debate over what goes first in a scone made its way to Parliament during the maiden speech of Ben Maguire, the MP for North Cornwall.

In a maiden speech, a new MP talks about their area, their campaigns and adds humorous anecdotes during the event, which is seen as a major occasion in the career of a parliamentarian.

The MP for North Cornwall was describing an incident during a campaign when a volunteer who had made a poster for a cream tea afternoon in Marhamchurch had included a picture of a scone, incorrectly displaying cream first.

Having referred to an “egregious error” during his election campaign, where a member of Ben’s team mistakenly published a photo of a cream tea with the cream placed first (the ‘Devon way’), Ben said that this mistake sent his campaign into “crisis mode.”

He said: “Although the election campaign was mostly a positive experience, we did have one crisis moment. Having advertised a meet and greet where cream teas would be sold, the real dangers of AI were brought home to me: a volunteer, producing the event poster using ChatGPT or something similar, had found a photo of a cream tea—but, tragically, it was a dystopian Devon version, with the cream on first and the jam on top.

“Before anyone had spotted this egregious error, it had been published all over my social media. As a proud Cornishman, it was indeed a shameful moment and we immediately went into crisis mode. Luckily, we survived that unfortunate episode, and I will be sure that I am never again associated with any cream tea that is not jam first.”

However, afterwards madam deputy speaker, Nus Ghani, yesterday weighed in on the age-old jam vs cream first debate, stating that ‘procedurally’ cream first was the correct way, an opinion which is likely to add fuel to the fire of the age long cross-Tamar controversy.

Following Ben Maguire’s maiden speech, the deputy speaker jokingly remarked: “It is important to be procedurally correct in the Chamber, and the procedure is: cream first and jam second.”