If history teaches us anything, it’s that alcohol and politics go together like gin and tonic

After Boris Johnson was attacked for his drinking habits, David Harding finds plenty of examples of leaders under the influence

The prime minister enjoys a pint during a visit to Wolverhampton (Getty)

Boris Johnson deserves all the condemnation he gets but his critics abroad may have chosen the wrong weapon – booze – to attack him with in recent days. This week, a prominent Belarusian television host described the prime minister as an “alcoholic” who “drinks low-quality vodka”.

A mistake, perhaps, for alcohol and politics go together like gin and tonic. History, it turns out, has long been under the influence of drink, from tales of Alexander the Great burning Persopolis to the ground in a drunken rage, Borgias killing rivals with poisoned wine, Peter the Great’s pet monkey attacking King William III at a bacchanalian summit, Britannia ruling the waves while feeding sailors with rum, the Russian-Japanese War having a cocktail named after it, all through to Johnson’s hero Churchill, and Pol Roger champagne.

In puritanical America, a first draft of one of the most famous documents in history, the US Declaration of Independence, was scribbled by Thomas Jefferson in a Philadelphia tavern. After serving office as the third American president, Jefferson left a wine tab of more than $10,000 – in 1809.

Fellow Founding Father George Washington was elected to the Virginia legislature after his campaign manager bought 160 gallons of booze and distributed it free to more than 40 per cent of the tiny electorate. One of Abraham Lincoln’s bodyguards – John Parker – left his post at the intermission to go for a drink as the president visited Ford’s Theatre in 1865. Lincoln was killed a little later.

The country’s most famous – and tragic – political dynasty, the Kennedys, were funded in part by the family’s trade in liquor franchises. Lyndon B Johnson drove around his Texas ranch and got the Secret Service to refill his plastic cup with Scotch and soda and Richard Nixon was once too “loaded” to take a call from Ted Heath.

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In the Soviet Union, dictator Joseph Stalin was said to generously fill the glasses of those invited to his dacha while he sipped on water and found out what was really going on. When the Soviets and the Nazis divided up Europe with the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact in 1939, the subsequent banquet apparently only started after more than 20 toasts to delegates.

Vladimir Putin’s predecessor Boris Yeltsin was once too drunk to get off a plane when visiting Ireland, leading to the phrase “circling over Shannon” becoming a euphemism for being really drunk.

And if all that makes you thirst for leaders who do not drink, three of the most well-known teetotalers in history are Hitler, Franco and Trump.

Yours,

David Harding

International editor