Good night out

It would never have worked on TV. Ann Widdecombe going out for a night on the town with a group of young professional women. No self-respecting binge-brunette would have allowed themselves to be seen on camera with a sexagenarian ex-MP who just happened to be off the booze for Lent. But there she was, in the Reggae Music and Soul Food Bar at gone midnight, knocking back her glass of fizzy water while Rebecca, Brooke, Phoebe and Kate sipped their shots and tots of vodka.

Widdecombe’s challenge was to look for some ‘real human beings’ behind the screaming headlines about Britain’s binge drinkers, those dolled-up girls in high heels, staggering along the nation’s high streets at three o’clock in the morning. Who are they? Why do they enjoy getting hammered? What do they feel like the next day?

The former Home Office minister is baffled. On Drunk Again: Ann Widdecombe Investigates (Radio Five Live) she told us about her grandmother, who refused to wash up the pewter tankard from which her dad drank his Sunday beer for fear of being contaminated by the alcohol.