An SW1 pub crawl: What makes the perfect political pub?
This week on Westminster Insider, host Patrick Baker takes a pint-fueled tour through some of Westminster's best-known watering holes in his bid to find out what makes the best political boozer.
Reform UK leader Nigel Farage explains why the Westminster Arms is his favorite pub and why his longtime friend, Gerry Dolan, its former landlord, is behind the pub's popularity.
Dolan himself recounts how lager-loving politicians would race over the road to vote at the sound of the division bell, before haring back to finish their drinks, and remembers how each of the different parties under his roof would occupy various corners of his pub like tribes.
Celia McSwaine, a former special adviser to ex-Chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng, illuminates the role of the Two Chairmen as the Treasury's designated post-Budget pub and recounts how the drinks were flowing in the immediate hours after the fateful mini-budget, before any economic meltdown had struck.
Pub enthusiast James Potts, a Labour councillor in Islington and author of "What's in a London pub name?" regales Patrick with the exotic history of the Two Chairmen from the secrecy of its top room, the site of much political plotting over the years.
Andy McSmith, former Chief Political Correspondent at The Observer, joins Patrick at the Red Lion in the heart of Westminster, recounting his pivotal role in breaking the infamous story that Gordon Brown's former spin doctor Charlie Whelan had told Tony Blair that the U.K. would not be joining the Euro, from just outside the pub.
Former Education and Culture Secretary Nicky Morgan returns to The Blue Boar, a discreet pub she says she hasn't been back inside since she found out there that the UK was to leave the European Union.
Labour insider Sienna Rodgers, Deputy Editor of parliamentary magazine The House, meets Patrick in The Clarence, and offers her top tips on where to find Labour MPs and special advisers nowadays.
And finally Patrick visits the famous Marquis of Granby pub, where journalist and Reform supporter Tim Montgomerie and Nigel Farage's former press secretary Gawain Towler describe how the 'MOG', as it's known, is Westminster's consummate rebel pub, ideal for plotting a political insurgency during the long days of opposition.
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