HOW is this for a daily routine? A (working) breakfast in bed, consisting of grouse (or partridge in season) washed down with whisky and soda. Lunch, laced with enough champagne and brandy "to incapacitate any lesser man". An afternoon nap, and then dinner, with plenty more champagne. And as often as not, a formidable nightcap of brandy.
That was how our greatest Prime Minister of last century, Winston Churchill, behaved when he was in office in the 1950s. When he was out of office he drank much more. Apologists have suggested that the stories about his drinking were exaggerated. The quote above regarding "amounts that would have incapacitated any lesser man" is from one of his private secretaries, Jock Colville. Another of Churchill's private secretaries, Anthony Montague Browne, seeking to soften stories, often from Colville, of his master's excessive boozing, later explained that the breakfast whisky and soda was rarely actually drunk but rather used as a throat moistener. But of course.
I don't know if Aneurin Bevan often needed to moisten his throat. Bevan, the greatest socialist orator of his generation, and the man who as Minister of Health oversaw the birth of the National Health Service, was certainly a prodigious political drinker. Indeed, he was probably the archetypal "champagne socialist". Churchill's pal, Brendan Bracken, called him a "Bollinger Bolshevik, a ritzy Robespierre, a lounge lizard Lenin".
A forthcoming TV documentary not only reveals that Bevan was investigated for taking bribes when he was Minister of Health; it also touches on his drinking. Bevan was described by a Chelsea nightclub owner as "a gross eater and a heavy drinker of brandy, wine and other expensive drinks".
The first press conference I attended, in Newcastle in 1969, was given by a clearly inebriated George Brown, who was then a back bencher, having recently resigned as Foreign Secretary after a drunken tantrum too many. Although Brown bravely rallied once or twice, and recovered intermittent coherence, it became sadly evident that he was almost totally incapacitated. Some of the reporters attending were disposed to make every allowance for him because they had been drinking heavily themselves.
Enoch Powell famously remarked that a politician who complained about the press was like a fish complaining about the sea, and I reckon he might well have been thinking of a sea of drink. Harold Wilson, in the early years of his premiership, had to contend with George Brown's constantly erratic, drink-fuelled behaviour, or misbehaviour. Perhaps because of this, Wilson himself took to drinking more and more brandy in the evenings.
Not all politicians of that era were soaks. Willie Ross, Wilson's redoubtable Secretary of State for Scotland, never touched the stuff. I recall Ross listening, with splendid patience, to a dipsomaniac journalist telling him in 1975 that he was not fit to reform Scotland's licensing laws because, as a teetotaller, he had no understanding of pub culture. This was absurd because Ross actually presided over a liberalising of the drinking hours. But drunks are rarely rational, and this particular journalist was noisily egged on by various inebriated trade unionists (the incident took place at a trade union conference in Rothesay).
Harold Wilson's successor, Jim Callaghan, gave up alcohol when he became Prime Minister. Ironically, one of his first acts was to sack the great puritan non-drinker, Willie Ross.
Callaghan's successor at No 10, the ever controversial Margaret Thatcher, certainly enjoyed a glass or three of whisky. In her notable late-night visit to The Herald offices in 1983, several of those who received her (including, I have to admit, myself) were drunk. But the lady did not seem to mind as she herself drank a large amount of whisky during what turned out to be a particularly convivial and lively occasion.
These days there seems to be far more irresponsible drinking in the country at large, but rather less in political circles. Certainly, the current Prime Minister and his likely successor are not notable topers. The dark horse to succeed Blair, John Reid, was at one time a very heavy drinker; now he does not drink at all. Charles Kennedy's much-discussed drinking problem was serious enough, eventually, to enforce his resignation as leader of his party; but I suspect he would have got away with it for far longer in an earlier era. After all, George Brown survived as a senior cabinet minister for a remarkable four years during which he was more often drunk than sober.
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