You may think that flavoured milk is just a tasty beverage – but flavour is not the only thing pushing sales

Milkshakes: a delicious drink, or the new symbol of the resistance?

Name: Milkshakes.

Age: First described in the 1880s.

Flavour: Vanilla, strawberry, chocolate, banana, the list goes on.

Mmm. I want a milkshake now. Can I ask what you plan to do with it?

Drink it through a straw while groaning with pleasure, I expect. What else would I do? Let’s just say you can’t be too careful nowadays.

Look, I know that a minority of milkshakes bring all the boys to the yard – but that’s not dangerous, surely? I’m more worried about the growing craze for tipping milkshakes on to rightwing politicians.

I did hear about this. Someone did it to that nasty bloke, didn’t they? You’re going to have to be more specific. Nigel Farage was hit by a milkshake in Newcastle today. So was the far-right activist Tommy Robinson (twice), while he was campaigning for the European elections – and the Ukip candidate Carl Benjamin (four times in the past week).

Nigel Farage doused with milkshake in Newcastle Read more

Hilarious! These people deserve it, don’t they? Well, call me a spoilsport, but I’d say that if you attack people you disagree with in the name of tolerance, you’re probably not thinking your opinions through.

Spoilsport. The same goes for egging. No matter what you think of John Prescott, David Cameron, John Major, Jeremy Corbyn, Nick Griffin, Arnold Schwarzenegger or Fraser Anning, it was wrong when people threw eggs at them.

I don’t think anything about Fraser Anning because I don’t know who he is. He’s a far-right politician in Australia, who was egged on camera by a 17-year-old boy in March and lost his spot in the federal parliament in last week’s election.

That’s probably a more effective kind of disagreement. The police take a dim view of “milkshaking” as well, it being illegal and stuff. They asked a branch of McDonald’s in Edinburgh not to sell milkshakes on Friday, when Farage was in town.

Richard Hall (@_RichardHall) put this on a flag, it is now the symbol of the anti-fascist movement. pic.twitter.com/hZgzAJCGSF

First they came for the milkshakes, and I did not speak out … Don’t worry. Burger King has you covered. “Dear people of Scotland,” it tweeted on Saturday. “We’re selling milkshakes all weekend. Have fun.”

Isn’t that condoning – even encouraging – a very mild and tasty form of violence? Yes, well, a number of people took that view on social media. “You just lost 17 million customers,” said one.

As marketing goes, it is certainly bold to pick a side in the country’s most divisive political question, then supply them with ammunition. Burger King is rowing back a bit now. “We’d never endorse violence,” it later elaborated, “or wasting our delicious milkshakes!”

I see what it did there. Yeah. Cute.

Do say: “How much harm could a milkshake possibly do?”

Don’t say: “With 430 calories in a Burger King chocolate milkshake, it might be more dangerous to drink it.”