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Everyone knows and yet when Hannah Spencer raises it she's told to get back in her box because she doesn't understand how it all works, love.
Being about to about getting pissed while feeling important is the only upside of being and MP. If they weren't able to do that loads of MPs would get frustrated at having near zero actual decisions to make.
Yeah, that was awful. I hope the MP who shouted "Get a life" when she raised her entirely reasonable complaint has every voter while she is canvassing be a hospital worker who says "I work long and difficult hours too, why do I not get alcohol for next to nothing while on the job?" Like the expenses scandal, MP have got away with it for so long, they can't see how it looks to the voters. Sure, you could make an argument for them being allowed a tipple after work. But, like, *after*. Serving alcohol at the market price after 5pm is fair enough. But subsidized alcohol at lunchtime when they are going in to an important debate or vote in the afternoon, that's just a gravy train being taken for a joyride.
If I can't drink on the job or in 9-5, then neither should the very people charged with ruling this country.
That logic doesn’t check out unfortunately.
This is my opinion. MPs should be *at least* held to the same standards as the rest of us. If I can't drink at lunchtime doing desktop support for a recruitment agency then MPs definitely shouldn't be allowed to drink on the job. See also: gifts. My free ruler could be seen as a bribe for a £200k desktop refresh project but MPs receiving free trips from Palantir? Nothing to see here
You can't but I can, not really a great rule to live by is it?
You can drink at many jobs, especially jobs that are office based. Its more company policy. The reason westminster has a bar is the endless events it runs. They treat them like adults and assume they are not stupid. If they are stupid judge them accordingly.
It's like how stringent anti-corruption rules apply across the public sector, except to them: they can take all the donations and second jobs and gifts that they like. Cash-for-access and consultancy work for all! Wait, no, not for you!
I've always felt drug testing for MPs should be mandatory if the same is legal to conduct in multiple businesses.
I can have a drink on my job... Just not get absolutely shit faced.
"Parliament is “Britain’s last alcohol-soaked workplace”" Lol. No.
Restaurants are full of pissheaded chefs.
As the old saying goes: "Beer, Beer everywhere, let's all have a drink"
Complete bullshit — “stomach pumping” is just not a contemporary clinical practice. That alone tells me much of this is bollocks. I don’t think it’s unreasonable to have bars and restaurants that serve alcohol— but it’s equally not unreasonable to have sensible restricted opening hours and to expect members, staff and guests to behave respectfully and responsibly.
I was thinking the same thing. I'm no doctor etc. but having worked in and around pubs years back, I feel like A&E haven't pumped stomachs for alcohol overconsumption for well over a decade.
The phrase is used colloquially to mean getting so pissed you ended up in hospital
What’s the modern practice used instead of stomach pumping? I thought it was still used.
Now if we can just get the shit pumped out of their brains we might be on to a winner.
I have, against my will, attended several political events, including a visit to the strangers bar. I have never seen people consume so much alcohol in public without the police being called. Not normally the big boys, who mostly hold their booze and retire to a private setting but the aides and hangers on, many of whom drink to the point of being unable to speak, which, frankly is a relief as "drunk and opinionated" is not a particulary enjoyabld combination. When you hear about some politico making a fool of themselves at this sort of thing it isnt after one or two refreshing beverages, it is after one or two bottles and it isn't because they were sat there drinking alone, it is because they got too drunk among a culture of excess That, by the way, the public says for in some form.
Why would you go online and lie for no reason?
They gift themselves the same amount of holiday that school children get. They moan about their objectively decent salaries (very good when expenses and corruption based benefits are counted), they get pissed and sniffed up on the job, and then they lecture others about hard work and austerity. People who don't find them repulsive are perplexing.
Bingo. All the "well we get low class politicians because we don't pay much" is assuming they don't get probably one of the coziest benefits packages in the country. It's the same as ceos taking little, if any salary and instead taking loans out against stock, dividends or having a lot of expenses against the company.
Good even as a non-green I agree with her. And unlike the majority of the degenerates that work in that building, she has actually done real work
Because I don't want puritanism taking over my country once again, I think they should be able to drink.
Would your boss be being puritanical if he wasn't happy with you needing your stomach pumped while at work because you'd been drinking so much?
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I’m not allowed to show up drunk on the job… So why the fuck should it be normal for complex legislative processes and decisions, that directly affect my industry and everyone else’s, be worked on whilst they’re drunk. If they want a drink, they can have it at the end of the day and only what the FSA/NHS advises an adult to consume by alcohol units.
lightweights, just shove in a kebab and sleep it of with your head in the porcelain throne like a normal person
It's a place of work. The bars need to be closed and the restaurants need to have their alcohol licenses revoke, in the public interest. If you're not allowed to drive after a few drinks then not sure why you'd be allowed to run a country after a skin full.
Imagine being so tired and emotional they have to pump it out of your belly!!
Imagine this is literally any other job, parliament would be rushing to set guidelines and restrictions.
" if one of thems at it, they probably all are" strikes again.. good old guardian, protecting the public morality..._yawn_.
All the comparisons about how there are many businesses in which you can have a drink while working are irrelevant. MPs aren’t in business. They’re in public service, paid by the taxpayer. The only relevant comparisons are with organisations like the NHS, schools, councils, social work agencies. And it’s those comparisons where MPs’ habits of drinking freely at work - in some cases regularly to excess - and accepting any gift or bung that comes their way, fall a mile short of what would be tolerated anywhere else.
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