Beer sales double as MPs take to drink
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Your support makes all the difference.Disillusion with politics appears to have spread to MPs themselves as they desert the Commons chamber for the comfort of Parliament's many drinking dens.
Beer consumption in the bars at Westminster has doubled in the past eight months and veteran parliamentarians are blaming it on the decline of the institution they serve. Stripped of fierce ideological clashes, debates in the Commons have become so bland that many MPs are spending their time in the bar instead, according to Sir Teddy Taylor, a teetotaller.
The trend was revealed in new sales figures for Federation beer, a brew served only in the Commons and working men's clubs in the North-east of England, which have increased 100 per cent to 2,500 pints a month since October.
"The Commons chamber remains empty most of the time, while the multitude of drinking dens are crammed full," Sir Teddy lamented.
He added: "The problem is that MPs are not finding the debating chamber at all interesting but they have to stay in the building to take part in votes. So, in increasing numbers and with increasing regularity, MPs are dropping into the many bars at Westminster.
"I have noticed that there are now more people than before who find difficulty in walking along the corridors in a straight line."
MPs face little difficulty in finding a bar. The Commons refreshment department operates 13 restaurants and eight bars, which served more than 2,300 gallons of lager in 2001. And the bars in the Commons keep long opening hours.
Traditionally, they have provided a refuge for MPs seeking shelter from tedious debates or political oblivion.
Sir Teddy, Tory MP for Rochford and Southend East, said: "Young people get elected to the Commons believing they can play a part in putting things right. And when they find they can't, because so many of the decisions are taken outside Westminster now, they resort to the drinking dens."
However, Dennis Turner, Labour MP for Wolverhampton South-east and chairman of House of Commons Catering, has seen little change in MPs' drinking habits. "I have not increased my intake, and I don't know of any MPs who have doubled their intake," he said.
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