Ben Wallace attacks Westminster drinking

Emerging blearily from his hangover this morning, Steerpike was greeted with the dulcet tones of a Cabinet minister, gravely intoning on Times Radio about the perils of Westminster drinking. Recent revelations about MPs’ behaviour, they suggested, raise more fundamental questions about the culture at the very heart of our democracy and the temptations available to our honourable members. Who was this model of moderation, you ask, this totem of temperance? Why, none other than Ben Wallace, the Forces’ Flashheart, sent out to deliver a sermon to self-restraint on behalf of, er, Boris Johnson’s government.

The Defence Secretary – whose work on Ukraine has led to him being tipped as a possible dark horse leadership candidate – told listeners that there is a ‘fundamental problem’ with Westminster’s culture, owing to a ‘poisonous’ mix of endless bars and long hours.  The sage of the squaddies gave his own paean to prohibition, sighing that such toxic behaviour ‘has been going for decades and it’s not easy to fix’ before declaring that ‘my advice to MPs is: avoid the bars.