Those of you who work in an office will know only too well the tedium, the drudgery and the toxic politics which can make the working day drag at snail’s pace until it’s time to go home.  

Whether it’s the mounting piles of documents in your in-tray, the constant bombardment of inane and irrelevant emails and WhatsApps, or the oh-so-funny jokes told by the resident office comedian (every workplace has one), a day spent at a desk can seem like a joy-free zone.

Fortunately, there is the odd distraction to keep you sane.  It might be the gossip over the water-cooler, the occasional lunchtime pint (although rather too many employers are clamping down on this), or the small satisfaction of pilfering petty items from the stationery cupboard to equip your study at home.  These are the tiny compensations which make working in a office (just) bearable.

But of all the office treats, the one which seems most likely to oil the wheels of office jollity is cake.

Home-baked by a wannabe Bake-Off star, or bought from the supermarket, there are few occasions which cannot be used as an excuse to tuck into a chocolate sponge, a raisin flapjack or a luridly-iced cupcake.

Given the disproportionate joy that office-based cake eating brings, it was perhaps inevitable that sooner or later someone would try to ban it.  Last week it happened.

Professor Susan Jebb, who is chairwoman of the Food Standards Agency, has suggested that people should stop bringing cakes into the office, because, she claims, doing so is ‘undermining people’s free will’.

Bizarrely, Jebb compares offering your colleagues a piece of cake on your birthday to passive smoking.  Now I am old enough to remember the days when workplaces were routinely polluted with clouds of tobacco smoke, and those of us who didn’t indulge had no choice but to breathe in the second-hand pollution of those who did.

One chain-smoking boss of mine did offer me a choice when I complained about having to share his 40-a-day habit -  I could sling my hook.  So not really a choice at all.  Saying no when offered a slice of Victoria sponge is simply not in the same league.

Jebb is quoted as saying: “If nobody brought cakes into the office, I would not eat cakes in the day, but because people do bring cakes in, I eat them.”  Here is someone who evidently has no will power. She is no more able to say no to a French fancy than she is to the £70,000 a year of taxpayers’ money she is paid (for a maximum of three days a week) to spout such drivel. 

If a colleague offers you a slice of cake and for whatever reason you don’t fancy it, just say so.  No-one will take offence; in every office there are plenty of people who are happy to have a second slice to make up for those who are on a cake-free diet.

Unlike passive smoking, which before the smoking ban was imposed on us all, deciding what you want and don’t want to eat is an entirely personal choice.  If someone is incapable of making that simple decision for themselves, then you have to wonder how they are holding down an office-based job where presumably they are required to use their judgement professionally on a daily basis.

Civil servants like Jebb are paid, by us, to do a job.  In her case, it is leading an agency which is responsible for making sure the food we eat is safe; not trying to deprive hard-working office staff of one of the few pleasures in life.

I’d write some more, but it’s time for a coffee break, and there is a lemon drizzle sitting by the coffee machine.  It would be churlish to say no when someone has gone to the effort of baking it.  I’m sure the de-stressing effects of the cake will be well worth the calories.  Happy January!