MPs Defend Booze Before Votes; Green MP Tears It To Shreds

Westminster’s club culture just hit someone from normal working life, and she refused to pretend MPs drinking between votes was fine. Right, so Nigel Farage, amongst others has tried to make Hannah Spencer look ridiculous over Parliament’s drinking culture, and have managed to make themselves look like defenders of booze before votes because it seems seeing the word Green ahead of upcoming local elections saw them grasping for the nearest culture war opportunity available. Spencer is of course the still quite new Green MP for Gorton and Denton and being rather new, the drinking culture in Westminster came as a bit of a shock to her. Drinking not after work. Not in a pub on their own time. But between votes, while Parliament is still sitting, while MPs are still doing the job of voting on laws. Farage then posted that the Greens are happy to legalise heroin and crack, but think an afternoon pint is a step too far, and invited everyone to make it make sense. Well fine Nige. If you insist. Let’s make it make sense. Drug policy is about criminal markets, addiction, public health, regulation and harm reduction. Drinking alcohol while still at work is about whether lawmakers should be sober when they are making decisions that affect all of us. Farage is trying to turn a workplace standards issue into a drugs scare, and all he did was put himself in the doorway of Westminster’s bar with a sign around his neck saying please don’t apply normal rules to us.