To think MPs shouldn’t be drinking while at work?

[greywildoceans]

There’s a big debate going on after new Green MP Hannah Smith has come out and said that you can smell the alcohol on MPs after lunchtime.

https://x.com/politicsjoe_uk/status/2048323140804100487?s=46

Of course all the usual lot are coming out saying it’s a British tradition to drink at work and she’s being “anti British”. I’ve worked in the public sector and the private sector and I have never encountered anyone who thought it was appropriate to drink while working. I’m confident that if anyone did, they’d be fired.

AIBU to say MPs should be banned from drinking while working?

I just disagree with this pearl clutching denial that people do consume alcohol in a professional setting. It makes people look really stupid and out of touch

Yep.

Because having an inhibited nervous system changes the way you think and act. It changes your decision making processes. They’re discussing and making decisions that impact the entire country from the smallest infant to the oldest pensioner. To do so while inhibited, by choice, through alcohol is disgusting. It shouldn’t be hard to choose a soft drink while socialising if you’re returning to work after. Would you say the same was ok for your doctor, dentist or surgeon?

Yanbu…and the tax payers subsidies this 🫤

If you’re a doctor working a 24 hour shift and it’s literally expected of you? Yes.

I completely agree. Assuming you're not operating machinery/performing surgery/driving or the like, then ..... no problem. Worst I can do us get my debits and credits the wrong way round 😮

I'd be amazed if my boss even mentioned it to me. In fact, he'd probably be there 🤷‍♀️

It’s not just that they’re in the pub getting tipsy before voting on matters of national importance, but also the fact that we are paying them for their drinking time AND bloody subsidising their drinks. Its ridiculous.

In some jobs it’s more acceptable, finance and creative spring to mind but agree it shouldn’t be subsidised by the taxpayer, especially with the prices and taxes lumped on for everyone else and pubs trying to survive.

She makes a good point and timely before the local elections. It’s the kind of thing many won’t like due to the subsidy even if not the drinking at work.

So, OP you think MPs are useless, overpaid arseholes who spend their lunchtimes drinking, except for the MP who originally called out her colleagues on social media (we must assume they don’t set a foot in the Westminster subsidised restaurants and they are in fact polishing their halo during their lunch break).

I think you’d be very shocked to hear what your NHS management and colleagues get up to 😮

I can't get worked up over this. It's fine in some industries and not in others.

I'm fairly left wing but the Greens really aren't appealing to me right now.

If I had the time I'd ask AI to tell me how many parliaments around the world have bars and restaurants and whether or not they are subsidised by the taxpayer. I'd say it's common especially in Europe and Commonwealth areas.

There is a tendency to Puritanism in the UK that doesn't seem to exist elsewhere in the world!

I doubt any parliamentarian anywhere (UK Greens excepted...) would voluntarily surrender their bars, restaurants, and private dining rooms for the good of their health 😊

I occasionally have a drink at lunch. I have perhaps around 2 half pints a week??

In the NHS in the 90s we would often go to the pub on Friday lunchtime for a drink.

But times changed and at some point it became a disciplinary offence to drink while working.

I imagine that has been the case across the public sector.

I don’t think it’s unreasonable to ask the same of our MPs.

Those prices are OUTRAGEOUS.

No. So what?

Obviously no one wants their MP to be inebriated whilst at work, but why do people assume that the people she is talking about are MPs, who may have finished work and are stopping for a quick meal and drink before going home?
Frankly, her childish comments are just that - childish tittle-tattle. She’s gossiping. Personally I prefer my MP to be talking intelligently about the main issues that affect my community and the country generally - cost of living, NHS concerns, impact that wars around the world have on the UK, unemployment. I’m pretty sure there are ways and means of raising complaints about issues about MP behaviour in the HOC.

I want to be elected, or invited!

Same subsidies apply to other parliaments around the world. Being elected is a privilege you know, and must be rewarded in addition to their pay. They often sit for long hours into the night when the pubs are closed you know! ha ha.

I don't think it's very professional of them or a good look if it's a regular occurrence. Occasionally I have a glass of wine with a lunch at work when taking someone out, but not often these days. The other aspect is that their bar is heavily subsidised. Right to question certain MPs' behaviour IMO.

Is it a Wetherspoons 😉

It's not.

You said on a night shift. Not a 24 hour one.

I’m Irish and the biggest culture shock I had working in the UK was lunchtime drinking. It would not be done or tolerated in Ireland where drinking is pretty famously tolerated so I was pretty surprised to see it in the UK.

As we know, they were at it during lockdown, having drunken orgies, when they should have been social distancing, and cowering at home saving their grannies, as they were ordering the rest of us to do.

Agreed! It's normal in my sector.

I can see how drinking in an industry where entertaining clients is part of the role could be acceptable, and even encouraged. However that is not the case for MP's. It seems insane to me, that people who are involved in the running of the country can drink while they are working. I also don't get the comparison with people sleeping on a night shift, given sleep is a basic human need, which is needed to function. Only alcoholics need alcohol to function, and I would hope our MP's are not that!

This issue has been rumbling on for years. I don't agree with the Greens on a lot of things although my politics are left wing, but I agree with them on this. Nobody needs to drink alcohol during the working day especially if their job just happens to be of national importance. And what other sector has an in-house bar subsidised by the tax payer? The whole operation runs at a loss of around £5.8m a year subsidised by us. As if that wasn't bad enough, it totally entrenches the "old boys club" and "snouts in the trough" entitlement of parliament which so many women have been trying to smash for decades. It really isn't going to kill these blokes to go without their subsidised booze is it.