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Hello. Right.

Just had a power nap to stave off bloats caused by a Thai green curry and have woken up feeling ‘antsy’. In hindsight it was a terrible breakfast choice, especially considering I paired it with a side of wobbly scrambled eggs… and chasing it with a Solero was total lunacy.

It’s comfort eating. I can’t handle the pressure. It’s this vote on curbing food speculation. I’ll be honest the whole thing just makes me want to bury my head in a large bowl of trifle. I’ve also been bingeing on sponge fingers. Not even some vigorous ‘Hammertime’ at the dance studio seems to help.

It’s actually beginning to become a serious problem. I’ve been making absolutely terrible food decisions in restaurants. Last night at the MPs Bistro, I ordered salt gammon with capers on a bed of crackers. My mouth was like a desert, even with the espresso.

Tonight I’m meeting some bankers to discuss food speculation question. Yikes! I like being lobbied, but until I get my ordering back on track, it’s a minefield. We’re going to a posh meat place that also does shakes and I can’t risk ending up with a lamb smoothie. I’ll be a laughing stock.

I’m not sure all this filming and blogging and tweeting is helpful. I feel like I’m George multiplied and God knows one of me is enough! So I’m going to hang up my blogging boots for now to give the matter of food speculation some serious thought.

Please continue to send me your views on food speculation using the email form on this page, if I get enough it may help me decide to do the right thing. But please stop sending me ‘protest’ pies in the post. My FT is covered in gravy.

I can’t help myself.

Your big hungry chancellor George (Osborne)

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Financial speculation is pushing up food prices and causing hunger and poverty around the world. George Osborne can act to prevent this. Email him now.

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Dear George Osborne, Chancellor of the Exchequer,

Excessive speculation on food by financial institutions has fuelled food price inflation, which has added £260 to the average UK household’s food bill and left millions across the world facing hunger and malnutrition.

Commodity derivative markets need better regulation to ensure stable and affordable food prices for the benefit of consumers, producers and businesses in the UK and globally. Better regulation of commodity futures markets has been called for by a wide range of experts, including the Head of the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation, the CEO of Starbucks and the Chief Executive of Unilever.

I welcome the UK government's support for better transparency in commodity derivative markets. I therefore ask that you support proposals, as part of the review of the Markets in Financial Instruments Directive (MiFID), that require almost all food derivatives deals to take place on regulated markets.

In addition, to prevent excessive speculation from distorting food prices, position limits are needed to restrict the share of the market that can be held by financial institutions at any given time. Please support the introduction of such measures, not just to prevent market manipulation, but to make sure these markets serve their basic functions for food producers and consumers. The adoption of weaker approaches, such as position management, could result in effective deregulation and would fail to address food price volatility.

Yours sincerely,

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