On the contrary, Civil Servants bringing in cases of booze and drinking whilst working would know that they faced the sack.
It certainly didn’t help that my role as Gordon’s spin doctor only really required me to be at the end of a phone both to him and the media. Or that I was practically encouraged to take journalists for boozy lunches, long afternoons in the pub and late-night karaoke sessions.
But there was one man who always resisted, one politician who exemplified dipso-discipline — and that was Gordon. He was quite capable of nursing the same glass of wine for two hours at a Downing Street reception. Despite this, he showed tremendous tolerance when I missed morning meetings or flights to Brussels, and fell over or dropped glasses at receptions.
Once, in front of half the Treasury staff, I’d had a one-sided physical altercation with a civil servant during a quiz night, and Gordon was told to speak to me about it.
Bashfully, he addressed me about controlling my temper — but mentioned nothing about the fact I was drunk.
On the odd occasion when he came into my office late at night, he’d even manage to ignore the eight empty cans of lager on the desk. But that was because no matter how far gone I might be, I retained the ability to talk to him coherently and authoritatively about what was in tomorrow’s papers and what our line should be.
www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2431230/DAMIAN-MCBRIDE-I-alcoholic-Commons-binge-drinking-capital-Britain.html