0715651854 (N) by Ben Wright

Author:Ben Wright [Wright, Ben]
Language: eng
Format: epub, azw3, mobi
Publisher: Gerald Duckworth & Co
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

The political lunch is a cherished feature of Westminster life. It is a chance to eat fine food with prominent politicians at the company’s expense. Alan Watkins, the shrewd veteran of Fleet Street’s El Vino wine bar, lunched politicians for more than fifty years. As a young reporter he learnt the principles of lunching from Sunday Express editor John Junor. ‘One was always to order from the table d’hôte menu, because that would shame one’s guest into doing likewise, so saving the company money. Another of Junor’s principles of lunching was to have no truck with vintages or wine waiters but to order the house wine, red or white but on no account rose.’8

But politicians have always been eager to eat and drink at the expense of the Fourth Estate. The story is told of three journalists clubbing together to entertain Roy Jenkins in the early 1980s. ‘When we got the bill it was £105, which in 1980 was impressive. Then a week or two later, we took Denis Healey out, and when we got the bill it was £115. One of us mentioned the comparison to him, which was terribly infra dig. But Denis didn’t mind at all, and we heard later from one of the research assistants that he’d gone along the Shadow Cabinet corridor banging on doors and shouting, “I’m more expensive to lunch than Jenkins!”’9

Jenkins was a legend in his own lunchtime. Few politicians since have matched his reputation, although some continue the tradition. Political journalist Peter Oborne remembers taking the former Labour Paymaster General, Geoffrey Robinson, out for lunch at the Savoy Grill in 1998. ‘We had several bottles of wine. I thought I could just about get it through on expenses. I went off to the loo, came back, and Geoffrey had bought a bottle of wine that cost about £350. I said “Geoffrey, I can’t possibly pay for that!” It’s obviously why he bought it. He said “You can’t buy a bottle of decent red wine at a London restaurant these days for less than £400.”’10

The political lunch is not a discreet affair. In fact journalists enjoy the kudos of parading their date. As the Mirror’s Kevin Maguire puts it, ‘never under-estimate the willingness of journalists to show off their contacts and be seen in public with a minister. It’s appalling and it’s showy but it goes on.’11 This means it is fairly easy to guess the source of a story in the following day’s paper or the identity of an unnamed Cabinet minister in a columnist’s Sunday feature if you’ve seen the journalist in conspiratorial conversation at Indian restaurant the Cinnamon Club. And now everyone can play this game through social media, as @eyespymp logs the sightings of MPs – at lunch, buying coffee, chaining up their bicycles, enjoying free hospitality at the football, waiting for a train. Many contributors are the researchers and bag carriers who mill around Westminster and the tone is predictably mocking, a reflection of the disdain felt towards politicians by the public, rivalled only by their loathing of estate agents and bankers.

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