An ambitious “morale-boosting” plan to purchase an Easter egg for every one of the UK’s 500,000 higher education staff has come unstuck after the delivery was delayed by the grounding of the Ever Given tanker in the Suez Canal.

The unprecedented gift of Easter treats was intended to thank university staff for their exceptional efforts over the past year, with sector leaders hoping the gesture would be a “much-needed morale booster” ahead of the return of students to campus this spring.

But the extraordinary plan to lift spirits was called off after it emerged that disruptions to global trade caused by the week-long blockage to the Egyptian shipping route had devastated the massive consignment of Easter eggs.

“We’d bought the chocolate eggs from a supplier in China but we’ve heard they have melted after the ship carrying them was diverted towards Cape Horn,” a sector source told ̽����Ƶ.

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“Normally the cargo would have been OK but a freak localised heatwave caused by El Niño, off the coast of Madagascar, fried the boat’s refrigerators,” Hershey McWonka, captain of the Malteser cargo ship, told THE via satellite phone from the Indian Ocean.

“The stock is ruined and one crew member had to be hoisted free from a flood of melted chocolate after a container burst open.

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“He’s fine but shaken by the whole experience – we’ve always known about the dangers of sugar but we never expected anything like this.”

However, sector analysts believe that the demise of the campus-bound chocolate may have averted a major political row over concerns that the cut-price eggs would stoke fears of overly cosy relations between China and UK academia.

“The murky web of financial deals between UK universities and China is well known but this chocolate-coated collaboration would have marked a new low for our once-glorious academic institutions,” said Ivor Binhad, from the China Research Group, the influential group of Conservative MPs which has led criticism of Sino-British academic links.

“Sadly I fear this chocolate fiasco only cracks the surface of what is an egg-istential threat to academic integrity.”

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The ill-fated project also suffered another cruel blow last night after hopes for a fresh consignment of Easter eggs, sourced from Belgium, were dashed by Brexit-related red tape.

“The emergency airlift of eggs was all ready to go but it turns out that border staff had to inspect every single package so it’s unfortunately not going to happen,” said one disappointed vice-chancellor, who had overseen the last-minute negotiations in Brussels, code-named “Operation Chocs Away”.

“It was a mercy mission that we believed would unite the sector and mark the start of a bright new era for Britain as a scientific superpower but it was sadly not to be,” she added.

“It turns out that Brexit didn’t mean Eggs-it after all.”

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