This week on Westminster Insider, host Patrick Baker takes a pint-fueled tour by means of a few of Westminster’s best-known watering holes in his bid to seek out out what makes the perfect political boozer.
Reform UK chief Nigel Farage explains why the Westminster Arms is his favourite pub and why his longtime buddy, Gerry Dolan, its former landlord, is behind the pub’s recognition.
Dolan himself recounts how lager-loving politicians would race over the highway to vote on the sound of the division bell, earlier than haring again to complete their drinks, and remembers how every of the completely different events underneath his roof would occupy numerous corners of his pub like tribes.
Celia McSwaine, a former particular adviser to ex-Chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng, illuminates the position of the Two Chairmen because the Treasury’s designated post-Funds pub and recounts how the drinks have been flowing within the speedy hours after the fateful mini-budget, earlier than any financial meltdown had struck.
Pub fanatic James Potts, a Labour councillor in Islington and writer of “What’s in a London pub title?” regales Patrick with the unique historical past of the Two Chairmen from the secrecy of its high room, the location of a lot political plotting over time.
Andy McSmith, former Chief Political Correspondent at The Observer, joins Patrick on the Pink Lion within the coronary heart of Westminster, recounting his pivotal position in breaking the notorious story that Gordon Brown’s former spin physician Charlie Whelan had advised Tony Blair that the U.Ok. wouldn’t be becoming a member of the Euro, from simply outdoors the pub.
Former Schooling and Tradition Secretary Nicky Morgan returns to The Blue Boar, a discreet pub she says she hasn’t been again inside since she came upon there that the UK was to depart the European Union.
Labour insider Sienna Rodgers, Deputy Editor of parliamentary journal The Home, meets Patrick in The Clarence, and gives her high tips about the place to seek out Labour MPs and particular advisers these days.
And eventually Patrick visits the well-known Marquis of Granby pub, the place journalist and Reform supporter Tim Montgomerie and Nigel Farage’s former press secretary Gawain Towler describe how the ‘MOG’, because it’s recognized, is Westminster’s consummate insurgent pub, excellent for plotting a political insurgency through the lengthy days of opposition.
