The Institute of Alcohol Studies has published a report claiming Parliament is an "alcohol-soaked workplace" where all-day drinking drives poor conduct among politicians.
The 38-page document, titled Under the Influence?, alleges that recent MPs have required stomach pumping due to inebriation. The report, described as a dry read from an offshoot of the old Total Abstinence League, gives no names for the individuals involved.
The report denounces the legislature as a soaks' paradise and complains that "individuals are responsible for self-regulating their alcohol consumption", suggesting a clipboard-wielding Rosa Klebb should monitor backbenchers. It expresses concern that alcohol is "linked to a networking culture deemed essential to career progression" and criticises arguments in parliamentary bars.
Political columnist Quentin Letts has pushed back against the findings published during an arid August, contending that Westminster actually suffers from not drinking enough. Letts argues that today's Parliament has become overly sober, sterile, and hyper-regulated, leading to overly energetic ministers pushing unnecessary policies.
Arguments for Parliamentary Drinking
Addressing critics who question why Parliament operates bars or why companies and charities host receptions with free wine for MPs and peers, Letts contends that politics remains a people business. Quoting the late Reverend Ian Paisley, who referred to alcohol as "The Devil's buttermilk", Letts argues that drinking can make political discourse more honest.
Unlike other occupations, parliamentary politics is not a formal profession requiring examinations. The only paper an MP needs is the returning officer's confirmation of an election victory.
Westminster historically operated in a far more liquid environment. The 19th-century House of Commons was frequently plastered, and the historic 1940 Norway debate that led to the downfall of Neville Chamberlain's government took place amid the smell of whisky, tension, and surging emotions.
Intoxication created notable incidents in the chamber during the late 1960s under Commons Speaker Horace King, a drinker. One evening at 9:25pm, King teetered into the chamber, struggled to reach his chair, and fell across the clerks' table with his ceremonial wig tilted at a 45-degree angle.
Government Chief Whip Bob Mellish snapped, "You're a disgrace, Horace, and I'll have you out of that chair in three months." Suppressing a burp, Speaker King replied, "How can you get me out of the chair, Bob, when I can't get myself into it?"
Famous Parliamentary Incidents
In his book on parliamentary drinking, BBC political reporter Ben Wright detailed an incident from 1983 involving Labour MP Edwin Wainwright. After overindulging in Strangers' Bar, Wainwright was escorted to a taxi but stumbled back into the Commons to deliver a speech.
Wainwright's delivery was so slurred that Hansard stenographers could not transcribe his words. Rather than a verbatim transcript, the official record simply noted: "Mr Wainwright made a number of observations."
That same year, Conservative MP Alan Clark was appointed a junior employment minister and assigned a front-bench speech on equal opportunities scheduled after 10pm. Having spent the earlier part of the evening at a wine tasting, Clark found the speech full of civil-service jargon and delivered it at "78rpm rather than 33rpm" to finish quickly, drawing a complaint from Labour MP Clare Short.
Five years later, Letts recalled drinking with Short at the Imperial Hotel in Blackpool on the first afternoon of the Labour party conference, noting that her drinking capacity made him feel like a puny amateur.
Impact on Political Leadership
Heavy drinking was common among major 20th-century political figures. George Brown served as a stocious economics minister and Foreign Secretary in the 1960s while maintaining public popularity, while 1940s statesman Ernie Bevin ran on drink in the way "a car uses petrol", and Roy Jenkins earned the nickname "Old Beaujolais".
Recent decades have seen contrasting examples of political drinking. The late Charles Kennedy was killed by drink, and other MPs have been seen bouncing off corridors, whereas Nigel Farage used a pubby bonhomie and beery image to help build popular support for leaving the European Union.
By contrast, Green Party leader Zack Polanski does not drink alcohol, leading Letts to suggest he might appear less fanatical and more persuasive if he did.
The late David Lipsey, a political adviser during the Wilson administration, told Ben Wright that "drink stopped the manic compulsion to do something every single day." Lipsey argued that modern ministers are "too sober and too energetic, thinking up wheezes they'd forget about if only they had a couple of large drinks".
Debate Over Modern Sobriety
Letts presents alcohol as a potential truth drug, asserting that ministers learn backbench and constituent opinions more effectively when mingling over a pint. Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer has faced criticism for seldom mixing with MPs, with Letts remarking that the former lawyer did not spend enough time at the bar.
Despite the institute's claims regarding stomach pumping, Letts describes current MPs as generally clean-livered. He suggests a few drinks might encourage politicians to challenge party whips, regulatory overreach, and excessive welfare spending.
Letts argues that arguments in bars help MPs work out what they honestly think about bad Bills. Addressing fainthearts who say "but it's a workplace and you shouldn't drink at work", he asserts Parliament is the cockpit of politics, an arena for debate and awkward truths that have been tamed by too much sobriety.
Winston Churchill famously remarked, "I have taken more out of alcohol than alcohol has taken out of me," while Boris Yeltsin famously stood on a tank to resist Soviet hardliners in 1991. During the Blair years, Labour backbencher Bob Marshall-Andrews, a regular at the Garrick bar at lunchtime, famously described Foreign Secretary David Miliband as "a pillock on his gap year" before calling for another bottle of club red.
Letts concludes that while alcohol in excess is a poison, politicians are citizens rather than saints, and convivial drinking remains central to effective democratic debate.
