Boris Johnson, it is fair to say, likes a bit of cheese. Last year, when he talked about how he managed to lose fourteen pounds in weight, he cited giving up ‘late night cheese’ as one of the causes.

During the day, however, things remain different: cheese (and wine) were famously the perfect accompaniment for a Downing Street work gathering. Over on the Conservative Party website, meanwhile, gastronomic fans can buy a copy of Corridors of Flour, full of recipes suggested by different politicians.

Boris’ offering, you might not be surprised to hear, is for Cheese on Toast. I think you can take a rough guess as to how that ‘recipe’ plays out, but it is worth adding in his serving suggestion: ‘Eat quickly before you are caught.’

Anyway, Boris has been back on the cheese this week in another of those interviews about why it is better for people to work in the office than at home. “My experience,” he told the Daily Mail, “is you spend an awful lot of time making another cup of coffee and then, you know, getting up, walking very slowly to the fridge, hacking off a small piece of cheese, then walking very slowly back to your laptop and then forgetting what it was you’re doing.”

Boris isn’t the only politician who thinks the world would be a better place if we were all back behind our desks. Jacob Rees-Mogg has been trawling, or possibly trolling, civil servants by leaving “Sorry you were out when I visited” cards for those working at home.

There’s a wider question here about the future of employment. Increasingly, it feels as though the politicians are on the wrong side of debate. Yes, it’s true that meetings in person can have a different energy to those on a Zoom call. But equally, it’s true that working from home is often more productive for concentrated work: back when I was a publisher and I had a book to edit, I knew I’d be far more focused out of the office, rather than in.

The future of work is about flexibility; both in terms of where and when the job gets done. This week Goldman Sachs announced it was going to give its senior bankers unlimited holidays, allowing them to ‘take time off when needed without a fixed vacation day entitlement.’ It’s an idea that is already in place in companies such as LinkedIn and Netflix.

Boris’ worldview would probably see such a policy as ripe for cheese-based abuse: extended trips to Camembert? Or Gruyères? In fact, such schemes tend to see employees taking less time off. Perhaps it’s time to start treating workers as adults, rather than as Babybels.