Haven't You Heard

by Marie Le Conte

  Of course, this might all backfire: if you’re seen publicly fraternising with the (Labour or Conservative) enemy, your actions might be seen as a betrayal and your concerns ignored as a result. Your internal opponents (in this case the hard Brexiteers) might also see it as a call to war, and an excuse to strengthen their own ranks and work on a counter-plot of their own. If you did all this because you actually were struggling to come up with a genuine plan, this result would be less-than-ideal. If you were just having a cup of tea and a whinge with colleagues but found yourself accidentally unleashing the fury of everyone else, it’s even worse. As with every tool or weapon, Portcullis House must be used wisely.

  EAT, DRINK AND BE MERRY

  Speaking of tools to be used wisely: let’s talk about booze. The history of British politics is drenched in it, and no exploration of any aspect of Westminster would be worth its salt without taking the drinking into account. It can be excessive and catastrophic, or a needed addition to the dreary day-to-day. Not everyone drinks alcohol in politics, but everyone’s career has been influenced in one way or the other by beer, wine or something stronger.

  For a start, there are plenty of places in which to get sozzled in Parliament: no matter your role, as long as you’re a pass-holder there will be a bar in which you will be expected to pop by at least once in a while. The one at the lowest rung of the ladder is the Sports & Social Club*, which is the haunt of parliamentary aides and other assorted staff.

  Going to the Sports & Social for the first time is an incredibly underwhelming experience. If it is where you’re headed, chances are that you are on the younger and more junior side, as MPs and peers rarely step foot in there. It might be your first week working in Parliament as a staffer, or you might be going there because a staffer wants to bring you in. In any case, you probably have a mental image of what your evening will involve: a fancy bar, high ceilings, beautiful windows, plush seats, posh women sipping on their champagne and posher men drinking their port – and so on.

  In fact, going to the Sports & Social first involves realising that its main entrance is just by the bins of the Palace. The second impression comes from the smell as you walk in; the unmistakable stench of spilled alcohol on old carpets. There aren’t any proper windows so once you’re indoors, you have no idea if it’s day or night, summer or winter. There is either no music playing at all or music playing far too loudly, and rarely anything in between. It is also impossible to predict which one it will be before turning up.*

  Clientele-wise, it is a mixed bag: the majority of drinkers tend to be aides in their early twenties and the outside friends they’re hoping to impress and/or bring home, some of the builders hopelessly trying to stop the Palace from crumbling to dust and the occasional older member of staff. An occasional addition to this merry band of randoms used to be Black Rod himself, at least when the role was held by David Leakey. He would come in, presumably to check that everything was in order, and would find himself mobbed by hordes of drunk 20-something nerds asking for selfies. If you think this sounds like an odd combination of people to stick in one bar, you’re largely right.

  Most MPs seldom make an appearance down that particular corner of the Palace, but it doesn’t mean that what happens there doesn’t reach them. One Labour MP who is close to their aide explains: ‘I stay out of it, but my assistant picks up loads and loads and loads of information in Sports which, you know, sometimes is just your classic “by the water cooler at work” kind of, “Oh right, oh, so that’s happening, is it? That’s interesting.” And it’s completely useless but just kind of nosy. Sometimes it’s useful when you know what’s going on on the other side.’

  Journalists tend to avoid the place as well, but will occasionally pop by when in need of a quick pint, or desperate to get a story. After all, staffers might not know as much as some people higher up the food chain, but few have received any media training and most will be keen to try and overstate their importance by blabbing to hacks about anything and everything they’ve heard. Aides tend to get burnt by the media once or twice then learn their lesson, but before it happens, their knowledge will be a free-for-all.

  The Sports is also an oddly welcoming place: as it is mostly used by people who are relatively new to the estate, there is a certain atmosphere that makes people unhesitant to chat to each other. Though the keenest of aides will stick with their clique, it is not rare to see groups of Tories, Labourites and Lib Dems drunkenly mingle and whinge about their jobs. After all, MPs can be difficult to work for no matter the party, and the complaints will often be similar.

  According to one centre-left Labour aide, it can even be better to have a good old bitching session with a staffer from another party: ‘If I’m talking to Labour people about my boss then they’ll be more concerned with what faction I’m on, what faction he’s on, and if it’s one they don’t like, they might use that information against us. If I’m talking to a Tory mate, there’s this understanding that we’re just having a pint and a whinge and none of it will be repeated afterwards.’

  Another Labour staffer put it more bluntly: ‘I have the researchers’ union – once you’re a researcher, I don’t care whom you work for, we can chat together. Well, unless you’re in the Green Party.’

  This party political truce was temporarily disturbed in 2015 when the SNP descended on Parliament with far more MPs than expected. Keen to separate themselves from typical Westminster politicians, they decided to set up camp in Sports, which didn’t please everyone. For a start, the place isn’t that big and a table of a dozen Scottish Nationalists can soon make a room feel crowded. On top of this, MPs aren’t exactly welcome at the bar – they have other watering holes on the estate specifically for them, so the least they could do is stay there. The stand-off was relatively short-lived in the end – the SNP slowly moved back to nicer parts of the Palace and a whole bunch of them lost their seats in 2017 anyway.

  Though these days it is often quiet, the Sports is mostly known for its raucous nights. One particular institution is the Thursday night karaoke, where packs of leathered youths belt out any song that could be seen as having a vaguely political meaning. Countless fights have also taken place there – some including MPs – and the majority of Westminster denizens in their twenties will have had at least one night there on which the less is said, the better.*

  In a somewhat unsurprising turn of events, parliamentary authorities shut down the place for several weeks after one brawl too many in 2018 and attempted to refurbish it to make it less seedy. The results weren’t exactly revolutionary but appear to have worked: as of writing, the ‘Woolsack’ has not been in the news for many months.

  If the idea of sticky carpets and dartboards doesn’t appeal to you, there are other options. In order to get to them, you must walk away from the bowels of the Palace and towards the river. At first glance, the Lords bar looks nearly as underwhelming as Sports, albeit in a different way. With its hospital lighting, one and a half stools and the fact that it is attached to the Lords canteen, the peers’ drinking hole feels like it is trying to convince you to turn around and leave. The terrace looking over the Thames, however, is a highlight, and is open to all as long as the House of Lords isn’t sitting, which is often. In a move that probably would have been frowned upon by Sir Charles Barry, it also started serving onion rings and mozzarella sticks a few years ago.

  Though the other side of the terrace doesn’t provide any deep-fried goods, it tends to be where the action actually happens. Much like the Lords’, the actual room that constitutes Strangers’ Bar is far from glamorous, and essentially one big empty rectangle with a bar on one side, a few battered old seats on the other, and a couple of TVs on one of the walls roughly in the middle. Its name comes from what people who do not work on the estate are technically called in Parliament, as Strangers’ is the place where MPs can bring in guests.

  As a result, only said MPs (and a few other senior passholders) can buy drinks at the bar, and anyone foun
d lingering on the terrace without being obviously in the company of a Member of Parliament will be politely but firmly asked to leave the premises.

  This absolutely does not mean that only MPs and their guests go there: in practice, people who have been around for long enough will merrily turn up assuming they’ll know at least one MP there, to whom they can vaguely wave at if an eager doorkeeper asks why they are there. Much like teenagers loitering around an off-licence, it is also not unknown for people to stick a tenner in the palm of an understanding MP so they can go buy them a drink.

  What this means is that the terrace often ends up being a mix of MPs, mid-tier to senior journalists, aides with their bosses and, depending on the night, a smattering of special advisers, lobbyists and parliamentarians’ spouses and friends. If it is the first half of the week and there are late votes, the place can be quite lively; if it is the first or last day of term and the weather is pleasant, it will be a mess.

  For a start, the drinks are cheaper than in most places in central London, which always helps, and Westminster is a place where excessive drinking in the workplace isn’t exactly frowned upon. As we will see later, the booze habits of the bubble have changed considerably over the last few decades, but this doesn’t mean it has gone dry. After all, in what other industries can someone drink five pints, pop into a room to vote on a new law, then pop out again to down another five? This might be a slightly extreme (though real-life) example, but it remains the case that people can be seen sipping on a drink on the terrace while technically working and no one will bat an eyelid.

  This predictably encourages the blurring between the professional and the personal. While having one drink with a colleague won’t change the nature of your working relationship, getting thoroughly sozzled with them on more than one occasion will put you on different footing. Miranda Green, a former adviser to then Lib Dem leader Paddy Ashdown, puts it that way: ‘When I was in politics, there was a lot of alcohol. The bars were open late and people basically lived there, so that informality was extreme. Everybody was drinking together; different parties, different journalists from different papers, us as advisers, all that, so your social life and your work life were absolutely melded together.’

  Nights on the terrace exemplify that: on any given evening, you can seamlessly go from pointed conversations about policy to giving someone advice about their love life (or trying to kickstart your own) and back to having a big old gossip about who might harbour ambitions of becoming a party leader. On a psychological level, this means that the personal has to influence the professional: the type of information you get will depend on the people you’re naturally drawn to, and your ability to gain access to that information will also rely on how sociable you can be. The flip side of this is that nights on the lash can often lead to blazing rows, especially when everyone involved feels very strongly about the same things. It is fine if it happens with either friends or strangers you will never see again, but having a screaming drunken argument with someone rarely is the best way to make a good first impression.

  Mix this with the fact that everyone is overworked and has to make snap judgements about the nature of the dozens of people they meet every week, and one 20-minute shouting match at 11:00pm can end with you having made an enemy for life. It is petty but then again, so are people in politics.

  Beyond the sort of things you talk about in Strangers’, the mere fact that you are there – or not – can influence where your career is going, especially for MPs, and the line to tread is a fine one. If you’re a newish MP, it can be wise for you to be seen on the terrace relatively often; you probably do not know many journalists and drinking is a good way to remedy that, both so you can make your point of view on the issue of the day known, and so you can establish more long-term relationships. Hacks also love an MP who is friendly and easy to talk to, and are more likely to warm to you if you’re the sort of person they can have a casual pint with.

  That being said, if you’re a very new MP, you probably shouldn’t be seen there too often: the people of Westminster do not know a lot about you, and ‘pisshead’ is not the first epithet you want people to come up with when they think of you. It would also be unwise for you to be one of the regulars once your career has taken off: there comes a point where people will assume that you are busy and important, and having the time to drink a pint or four several nights a week will damage that otherwise flattering image. Similarly, haunting the terrace can be crucial if you want to be as well informed as possible, or be an effective plotter, but get spotted there a bit too often and you will get a reputation for being an inveterate gossip or an untrustworthy rebel.

  Still, all of this does not mean that it would be impossible for someone to have a career without spending time in Strangers’ – it simply is the case that going to the bars can act as a convenient shortcut. Climbing the greasy pole is impossible without at least some hard work, but informal networks can help enormously, which is why it is worrying that one type of people will generally tend to be more comfortable spending time in the bars.

  ‘Strangers’ Bar and the terrace are very male-dominated,’ says one female MP. ‘The staff there are always jumped-up young men who want to be in the know, and trade gossip and information; that’s how they push their status up in here.’

  That a drinking environment ends up being male-dominated is hardly surprising, but it is a problem. The more men hang out on the terrace, Sports or others, the more likely it is that the atmosphere will discourage women from joining in, and the fewer women there are in those spaces, the more masculine they will feel – and so on. On top of this, women (especially young ones) who still decide to occupy those places do so at their own risk. As the aide mentioned in a previous chapter, getting a reputation as a woman who spends a lot of time around certain men will do you no good, even if nothing romantic or sexual has ever happened. Try as you might to drink and network like everyone else, you will also be confronted with men who either assume that you’re looking for a casting couch promotion, or try to convince you that it is something you should at least consider. Oh, and if you do end up falling for one of them, word will soon go around that you slept your way to whichever position you currently occupy, even if it is demonstrably false. Fun, isn’t it?

  Women aren’t the only casualty of this alcohol-focused work culture, of course – Muslims, people who don’t drink for whatever reason and those with young families in London might also not wish to spend their evenings in the bars of Parliament. ‘People who are from minority backgrounds, whether that’s state education or female, y’know, still a minority here, or BME, are probably less likely to be part of those drinking groups,’ says Chi Onwurah MP. ‘I probably go to Strangers’ for an hour once a month, if I’ve got people visiting me.’

  SW1A

  If you’re reading this book, it seems fair to assume that you’re broadly aware of the concept of ‘pubs’, so there probably is no need for a greatly detailed section on the drinking establishments of Westminster. Still, they do matter so it seems worth taking a brief look at them:

  The first stop on our tour has to be the Red Lion. Located on Whitehall and by the Derby Gate entrance to Parliament, it is the most famous pub in the area. Should you happen to pop in without knowing what to expect, you wouldn’t be shocked by anything in it. It is a pub in central London where the drinks are overpriced and the punters are mostly middle-aged white men in badly fitting suits, and most of them drink on the pavement as the inside is generally too cramped and warm. The one (somewhat crucial) difference is that the Red Lion is host to all sorts of Westminster denizens, if you know who to look out for. There are civil servants, journalists, aides, the occasional MP, lobbyists, policy wonks and all the rest, drinking in small groups and occasionally mingling with each other.

  Given its location, the Red Lion is a bit similar to bars within the parliamentary estate, as everyone can see who’s drinking with whom, and it is a great spot to stand and watch MPs and mini
sters grumpily or triumphantly going from No 10 back into the Palace, or vice versa. It has also earned its place in political history, not just because it has been standing for centuries, but more recently because of an evening in late 1997.

  New Labour was in power, Tony Blair was pretty keen on the UK joining the euro and Gordon Brown was not. Charlie Whelan was the Treasury’s press secretary and liked a drink; the Red Lion was his unofficial HQ and he enjoyed briefing journalists there. His boss, Brown, had given an interview to The Times due to be published the next day, where the Chancellor would reveal that joining the eurozone before the next election was effectively off the table. White wine spritzer in hand, Whelan called journalists to talk them through the big news. Entirely unsurprisingly, two Lib Dem staffers happened to be standing next to the Labour man and managed to overhear everything. It was then their turn to call up hacks to deliver the big news, and so the scoop was broken.

  It was certainly news to the public (and bad news for The Times and their big Saturday story) but it was also new information to someone else: Tony Blair. The Prime Minister was in his Chequers residence that night, but got tipped off that there had been a sudden big policy change. He tried calling Brown, who didn’t pick up, and his spokesperson Alastair Campbell, who didn’t pick up either. Ben Wright recalls what happened next in his book Order, Order!: ‘Desperate to discover what was being briefed to the newspapers, Blair called Whelan, who answered his mobile phone in the Red Lion pub. I stepped outside, says Whelan, and Blair said, “What’s going on about not joining the euro?” He said we had to kill the story. I told him it’s too late. It’s already gone in.’

  And that was that. One of the biggest policy decisions of the New Labour years, something that drastically altered the direction in which Britain was headed, revealed to the Prime Minister because someone told someone else about it in the pub, and some people overheard it.