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How is This Allowed?

Slow News Day

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A new report by the Institute of Alcohol Studies published this weekend has revealed the worrying extent to which parliament’s many on-site bars and frequent booze-soaked events fuels a culture in which MPs are spending excessive amounts of time getting sloshed. What does it say about the culture among parliamentarians that the people who hold the highest offices in the land are frequently sinking a few cold ones before voting on laws which affect us all? Does an increasingly outdated drinking culture in parliament risk further alienating people from politics at a time when trust in government has never been lower?

The Slow News Day Team
Creator and Host: Tom Nicholas
Producer: Jack Carter
Editor: Georgia Burrows

20 Comments

@SlowNewsDayUK Creator 1 month ago Pinned

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@digglerdudeuk 1 month ago

A lot of them have to drink to forget what reprehensible people they are.

@Rhaifha 1 month ago

Just.. don't serve alcohol at work?? It's not that hard to fathom.

@bendurrant4810 1 month ago

Imo if you're in a condition where you wouldn't be allowed to drive you also shouldn't be allowed to vote on legislation

@pauldee227 1 month ago

Absolute piss-take and goes some way to convincing me that the Greens are the only ones who want a modern political system. I was 100% on Hannah Spencer's side when she called this shit out.

@idiotka172 1 month ago

If Andy Burnham wants to make budget cuts to fund his plans for social care, he should start with the subsidised booze at Parliament. Don't cut welfare for those who are vulnerable. Easy.

@XenonPrimeSBSV 1 month ago

MPs should be held to the same standards as civil servants.

Also, the consumption of alcohol on the grounds of Parliament should be banned outright and subject to fines.

MPs being intoxicated on the grounds should be subject to criminal charges and suspended from Parliament for a minimum of 12 months.

@jacs2701 1 month ago

When you're in the briefcase class, day drinking on the tax payers' penny is harmless and an important way to preserve part of the traditional British way of life.

When you're working class and on universal credit, drinking at all makes you a lout, a scrounger, an irresponsible moral failure, and also it's still your fault that pubs are dying, somehow.

@AdamGaffney96 1 month ago

I think it shows how insane drinking culture still is in the UK to see all the reactions to this. If someone was drunk in almost any other place of work they'd be given a hefty warning. Instead you're getting people saying you're a "party pooper" for not wanting the people in charge of the military to be off their tits when making decisions? I don't drink and I will quite happily go out after work with people who get shitfaced and have a great time doing it sober, I don't care if you wanna drink, do drugs whatever, just don't have my literal life in your hands while you're doing it please.

@pandasylver 1 month ago

Acting like they were ever sober

@FranciT98 1 month ago

The UK in general has a drinking problem. Most people, though, are at least responsible enough to not drink when on the job.

@mulhollandprentiss 1 month ago

I'm convinced if another guy fawkes were to attempt an attack on Parliament, they'd be too pissed to even hear the explosion 😂

@JustAnotherSarahBright 1 month ago

They vote on laws. Laws are complicated. To understand them, they need their brains to be working properly. That means not being pissed. For fucks' sake.

@sashasscribbles 1 month ago

MPs are already paid an insane amount and they get subsidized booze and food??

@kaitlyn__L 1 month ago

I suspect journalists like it because they get more scoops when MPs are smashed.
It really is out of step with the times though. In the 60s builders and plumbers would have beers at lunch, and even keep a couple tinnies on the go while working (like we now see with tea). Office workers would often have liquid lunches, plus boozy meetings, and just be expected to do the important work in the morning.
But they don’t anymore. Another commenter mentioned police stations no longer having bars onsite as a comparison.
Parliament needs to catch up.

@LocalMorrowBoomer 1 month ago

I work for the Texas state government, and smelling alcohol on someone's breath immediately involved our whole supervisory team and HR, and within a month the guy was on paid leave for rehab. This is from the state whose eponymous "tea" has bourbon and triple sec

@z3122 1 month ago

Do they take a drink everytime someone says "order"?

@camipco 1 month ago

Good for Hannah Spencer.

@LIZZINHELL 1 month ago

alcohol is a drug, like any other. the only reason it's not in the platonic conception of "drugs" alongside cocaine and such is popularity, same reason we don't call people who need 3 coffees to get through the day "drug addicts". like any other drug, it can be used and abused. being heavily drugged, even on alcohol, while doing a job as important as being an MP, should be treated no differently to going down the motorway on opioid painkillers, or doing a construction job on coke, and the media's attempt to slander hannah spencer for revealing this is, while entirely unsurprising for bourgeois press, utterly sickening.