Brawling in the Commons Strangers' Bar is something we all enable – we subsidise MPs' drinks
Not only do I blame myself for what happened in the Commons Strangers' Bar on Wednesday night – I blame you. Each one of us must shoulder some of the responsibility for Falkirk MP Eric Joyce's allegedly drunken fisticuffs, because it is we who subsidise the drinks in the Houses of Parliament, and therefore we who must acknowledge our role in the cheap booze culture that MPs have rightly observed is shaming Britain.
A pint in the Strangers' costs £2.60, where elsewhere in Westminster you'd be lucky to get away with paying 40% more than that. The taxpayer subsidises MPs' bars and canteens to the tune of £5.8m a year, and my verdict on myself for this indulgence is unsparing. I'm an enabler, and it feels like the moment to call time and ask you to join me in staging an intervention for the troubled Palace of Westminster. It's not so much that we're watching someone we love destroy themselves – more that we're watching a lot of people we don't love slurp whatever remains of our electoral self-respect.
But first, an update on Mr Joyce, who has been charged with three counts of common assault and is due to appear at west London magistrates court next month. It's perhaps too soon to speculate on a possible third act in the life of this army officer (education corps) turned MP, but you'd have to think the Jonathan Aitken route would see Eric lecturing on temperance to a benighted populace.
Already, however, he might be judged to have achieved two valuable things. The lesser achievement, though still a worthy one, is the gaiety his tale has added to the nation. Even the newspaper pictures of the four MPs who allegedly took a bit of punishment from Joyce – three Tory and one Labour – seemed to have been printed to encourage readers to speculate idly on who they'd punch first, in ascending order of violence. Alec Shelbrooke (Con, Elmet and Rothwell) came in at four for me, though this is obviously only a parlour game as theoretical as Snog, Marry, Avoid (and just be glad you aren't even required to contemplate two of those options). Indeed, if the magistrate ultimately decides his case should come before a jury, Joyce could essay a historic legal defence by asking the ladies and gentlemen whether they would honestly condemn him for giving an MP a slap.
In the meantime, let us not sour the moment by mourning what might have been. Yes, it would have been nice if George Osborne had been in the bar. And, admittedly, it is a shame that Joyce just missed the delegation of Canadian MPs who had been there earlier, and thus the chance to turn his Road House moment into an international incident. The Canadians may have been tired, what with the travelling, and they may well have been emotional, given the far-too-gracious respect many of them still hold for the old country. But they were not tired-and-emotional, and for such mannerly foreigners to have been given a practical definition of that local idiom would have been gilding the lily.
As mentioned, though, Joyce's antics could yet achieve something even more worthwhile. In opting to go tonto at the precise time that the coalition is lambasting the serfs for their scandalous appetite for cheap booze, and seeking ways to price them out of their shameful weakness, he has highlighted the preposterous anachronism of subsidised parliamentary bars. How, during these grim economic times – and indeed any times – can such a Marie Antoinettish extravagance be justified?
Needless to say, it's not the most grossly hypocritical Westminster perk. That remains MPs' pensions – the only public sector retirement scheme yet to be attacked by the coalition, despite being insanely lavish. It is at times like this that one feels the loss of the former Buckingham MP Robert Maxwell most keenly, in the hope he'd have inveigled himself into being in charge of the members' fund.
Still, as far as subsidised booze for our elected representatives goes, where now for Eric Joyce's eccentrically launched reform programme? Traditionally, the Tories have trialled controversial policies in Scotland, regarding the country as some sort of remote test arena where it doesn't especially matter if you mess up. The poll tax had its coming-out ball north of the border, while Aberdeen was recently chosen to pilot the scheme to cut disability benefits.
But, on the principle of Buggins's turn, perhaps it is finally the turn of somewhere closer to home to be selected as proving ground for the plan to hike alcohol prices. And where better than the House of Commons bars? As the politicians' own fiefdom, and unlicensed, think of the speed with which the scheme could be initialised. Why, they could start it on Monday. Put the price of a pint in the Strangers' Bar up to a tenner, and see how it affects consumption.
After all, were you to conduct a straw poll of a public still smarting from the expenses scandal, my suspicion is that you wouldn't find a single voter who'd disagree with the ban on cheap alcohol being trialled in the mother's ruin of parliaments – particularly if they realised their taxes were subsiding it.
Twitter: @marinahyde