A barbecue? Only if it's charcoal-free and celebrates our ethnic diversity

While most of our readers quickly saw through the preposterous idea, one politically-correct local authority didn't seem to get the joke.

Camden Council is insisting that a neighbourhood group agrees to a string of health and safety restrictions for its long-running summer fair, which include using a less environmentally damaging barbecue.

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The Primrose Hill Community Association, in Labour's North London heartland, has been running a successful event for 29 years, but now it has been told it should:

... Ditch its traditional charcoal barbecue for a cleaner gas-powered one.

... Do more to celebrate ethnic diversity, and include under-represented groups.

... Not allow just any volunteer to cook the sausages and burgers; they must be a registered, professional caterer or someone with a food hygiene diploma.

... Conduct a customer-satisfaction survey among those attending the fair.

The residents' group must comply with all the restrictions in order to receive a grant of just £400 from the Liberal Democrat-dominated council.

Organiser Mick Hudspeth was also told there were vague 'local issues', concerning the use of the green in the middle of Chalcot Square, where the event is traditionally held, and that his application for the grant 'did not demonstrate clear evidence of how the festival celebrates the area's diversity'.

The red tape could embarrass Environment Secretary David Miliband, who lives in a £1.5million house in the square and regularly attends the event. His brother Ed, a Cabinet Office Minister, often goes along too.

Organisers have accepted the £400 from the council's community festivals grants panel, and must now meet the conditions, including the requirement that at least five per cent of those attending the Primrose Hill Goes Tropical event on June 16 fill in questionnaires.

Keith Bird, 73, who has helped run the barbecue there for the past 20 years, said the restrictions threatened the fair's survival.

'We've never had any problems with food poisoning or anyone being injured,' he said.

'We are extremely careful about hygiene and provide volunteers with serving gloves and soap and water.

'We can't afford to bring in professional caterers and we don't have any volunteers with a food hygiene qualification, so I don't know if we'll be able to hold the barbecue this year.

'It's one of the most popular stalls and if it isn't up and running there will be a severe drop in income for the community centre.

'The Milibands usually turn up and you can see them chatting and tucking into their beefburgers.

'This is another step in the saga of restrictions being imposed by councils on local events. We had fireworks until a few years ago, but then that had to stop.

'You wonder what they'll think up next, perhaps checks on the cake and jam stall to make sure they're using the right ingredients.'

One reason given for the need to change from a traditional barbecue was that hot coals have previously been tipped on the ground, damaging the grass.

But Mr Bird, himself a former Labour councillor, said: 'It's ridiculous to say the coal damages the grass. At the end of the day we pour cold water over it and bag it up into black plastic sacks, then the binmen take it away.'

A council spokesman admitted that festival organisers might find the new rules 'challenging', but said the council had a responsibility to 'alleviate risks, particularly when they concern public safety'.

Two weeks ago, this newspaper revealed that David Miliband's four-storey Chalcot Square home, which he shares with his violinist wife Louise and their two-year-old adopted son Isaac, is at the centre of a complex inheritance-tax avoidance scheme which Gordon Brown has pledged to ban.