JUST fry and stop Sinn Fein MLA Phil Flanagan from raising all the big issues at Stormont.

The Fermanagh-south Tyrone MLA is spitting chips on his new blog after receiving correspondence from a pupil at St. Michael’s College about the price of crisps in the school vending machine.

“The price of a bag of crisps in the school vending machine has recently increased from 50p to 60p,” wrote Mr. Flanagan, saying the matter required his “immediate and urgent attention.” “Devastated by this above inflationary increase, one young man has urged his local MLA to take action,” added Mr. Flanagan. “Simple enough you’d think. Write to the school, vending machine operator, Tayto, potato growers and the agriculture minister urging them to do more to reduce the price of this break time snack. Not that simple your man says.” The schoolboy, who is in fourth year, has told Mr. Flanagan that there isn’t enough room in his pockets to hold both a 50p coin and a 10p coin.

“He is asking me to campaign for the introduction of a new 60p coin to remedy his problem.” Mr. Flanagan, who believes introducing such a coin makes cents has taken this issue on board and “will be raising it with the appropriate authorities and reporting back here with an update.” In concluding the topic on his blog, Mr. Flanagan asked: “If such a coin were to be introduced, I wonder what shape it would be. Would it be an equilateral curve heptagon like a 20p and a 50p or a round one like most other coins?” And in a follow-up post, the sweet toothed Sinn Fein man wrote about the demise of the pink SNACK bar, the iconic chocolate wafer snack that has been discontinued due to a decline in sales.

“I was saddened to hear that pink snack bars are to be no more. I have many fond memories of scoffing snack bars during my time working in the Hotel Carlton in Belleek. Although my personal preference would have been the purple snacks,” wrote Mr. Flanagan.