Do you drink alcohol while working late? Or, like most people in the real world, do you wait until you have completed your employment commitments before enjoying a drink in your own time? New Green Party MP Hannah Spencer has raised a subject that, in an ordinary world, would be an absolute no-no for most sensible people: drinking on the job.
Hannah Spencer's Concerns
In an online interview with Politics Joe last week, Hannah, the MP for Gorton and Denton, spoke about Westminster's well-documented drinking culture. Clearly concerned about what she had witnessed in the Commons, she said: "I'm really uneasy about…when you can smell the alcohol. When people are in between votes and everyone's going in to vote.
"Some people have been drinking in between. There's a room where I walk past and I've doubled back and looked in because people are just sat having a drink. I can't imagine if a cleaner did that or someone working in a bank – had a few drinks and then went back to work smelling of alcohol – that wouldn't happen."
Backlash from Colleagues
Hannah is taking fire from both right and left wing colleagues. One of them, Natalie Fleet, Labour MP for Bolsover, who does not herself drink, said the Commons' smell of "fags & beer" is one of the things "that make it seem [a] tiny bit normal". Luke Charters, Labour's MP for York Outer, posted on X: "Breaking news: MPs are human and sometimes have a drink. Classic clickbait farming."
What is it about Hannah's concern that is hard to understand? Nor is she the first person to raise it. Sue Gray, former Chief of Staff to Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer, caused a stir two years ago when she declared she wanted to shut down the Commons bars. A 2023 report from Parliament's behaviour watchdog expressed concern that Westminster's drinking culture directly led to incidents of "intimidating behaviour" and an unsafe environment.
Why Defend Drinking on the Job?
Why is it that the MPs who effectively work for us feel emboldened enough to defend continuing to drink on the job? Culture. The rotten, archaic culture that allows them to lecture us but do as they like. Lots of people work late, including bus and taxi drivers, firefighters, doctors, nurses and teachers. Should they be allowed some liquid lubrication? Of course not. Turn up for work with alcohol on your breath and you, like most ordinary people, would be out on your ear.
So it takes some brass neck for the very MPs so pious over conduct unbecoming from sections of the electorate to be demanding the right to treat the House of Commons like the Rovers Return or the Queen Vic. And yet the stampede of right-wing MPs who are determined to bend Hannah's point out of shape continues to be as predictable as it is appalling.
Local Elections Looming
With the local elections looming, do MPs, whose salaries are funded by us taxpayers, really want to die on this hill? If they really do want to drink, why don't they shift proceedings so they can do so after work? Do they really want to create an image of themselves as staggering (you're delusional if you think it's only ever one drink) into the Commons chamber to vote on matters that affect all of our lives?
Reform leader Nigel Farage entered the chat on Sunday evening, framing Hannah's concerns as her suggesting "an afternoon pint is a step too far". As an attempt to minimise and misrepresent Hannah's unease it was trademark Farage. Hannah is right. Our archaic practices need reform. Just not THAT kind of Reform.
