If you think trawling through last night’s receipts to find out just how much you spent at the pub is bad, imagine totting up your booze budget for the entire year.
For British MPs, the exact number of post-work pints at Westminster’s watering holes, all those cheeky glasses of red with dinner at the bankside cafeteria, and flutes of networking event fizz are laid out every year in the Government Wine Cellar‘s report.
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Yes, the Government has its own wine cellar. And it contains 33,660 bottles of wine and spirits with a market value of more than £3 million ($3.65 million). Just in case you were wondering.
This year’s Wine Cellar report, which was released yesterday, shows that over the last year, MPs imbibed £47,236 ($57,582) worth of wines and spirits. That equates to 3,677 bottles of vino—44 percent of which were Welsh and English wines—and 53 bottles of spirits.
But that’s nothing compared to last year. The report showed that MPs’ booze consumption had dropped by a third, perhaps due to “the General Election campaign and the general disruption to Government activity.”
Right. Because no one wants to be papped stumbling out of the Westminster bar at 4 AM when they’re trying to win votes. Oh, wait.
As well as divulging the boozy habits of those running the country, the Wine Cellar also seeks to assure the British public that the Westminster wine collection is able to fund itself. It reported that sales of high-value bottles of wine amounting to £40,390 offset purchases to the value of £40,177. The cellar also received £15,848 in payment for wine from other Government departments.
The county’s deficit might be widening but at least we can balance the wine books, eh?