Over the weekend Guido couldn’t help but spit out his Sunday lunchtime Rioja when John Bercow popped up on Murnaghan to claim he’d put an end to subsidised booze in the Commons bars. The Speaker insisted it was no longer a case that there was a “heavy subsidy”, even though House figures show the taxpayer has coughed up some £5 million to quench MPs’ thirsts this year alone. Bercow’s definition of what constitutes a heavy subsidy may differ from the rest of us

The Speaker went on to criticise the Westminster culture of booze, even having the nerve to suggest that some MPs might be better off cutting down on their drinking. His advice certainly wasn’t taken by Labour’s Emma Reynolds and her team at Francois Hollande’s victory party in Paris. Guido has it on good authority that, in true socialist fashion, the champagne was flowing freely. It’s just a shame Emma’s boss, wee Dougie Alexander, wasn’t there to join in the festivities…

Whilst on this occasion the French seemed to manage to handle their drink, the same cannot be said for the LibDem chief-whip Alistair Carmichael. The Scot had one too many glasses of red on the evening, and then made the fatal mistake of sharing the news on Facebook:

Scottish LibDems are joking that never before has one of their MPs seemed less out of touch…

The men in tights at the Commons have come up with a solution to stop our elected Members beating each other up in drunken rages:

· a wider range of non-alcoholic drinks and lower strength beers will be provided in catering outlets
· staff serving alcohol would receive further training and support in refusing to serve customers when necessary
· at receptions and events where alcohol was served, glasses would be topped up less frequently

Guido has a better idea. Just remove the £5 million annual subsidy…

Tristan Pithers, who was the organiser of Ben Bradshaw’s re-election campaign “We’re Backing Ben 2010″, has defected to the Lib Dems stating:

“The class-warfare that the Labour Party is launching on the Government is shameful. It is not the kind of politics a serious Opposition should be engaging in. Mr Miliband should understand better than many that it is not your background that defines you but your ideas. If he believes that governments should not be run by privileged, sheltered millionaires then he and his Shadow Cabinet should hand in their resignations tomorrow morning.”

Yet another Blarite jumps the two Ed’s ship. 

It’s not just Labour who are playing musical chairs. No less than 40% of Leeds Conservative Future committee walked out of the Conservative Party this weekend and joined Farage’s growing bandwagon. This latest exodus from the Young Conservatives led to their thirsty chairman Ben Howlett having a near Twitter meltdown last night. He tried to claim that none of the defectors had even been members, despite some of them standing for local council seats. His big mistake was claiming he looked them up on a central membership database…

Personal data relating to an individual’s political opinions constitutes “sensitive personal data”, making it all the more sacrosanct. Where data is not being processed in a manner that complies with the Data Protection Act, the victim is entitled to compensation for damage and distress suffered. Guido is guessing that Howlett was not aware that Section 55 of the Data Protection Act states that a person must not obtain or disclose information contained in the personal data without consent. Guido’s learned friends reckon to tweet said information looks a lot like a criminal offence…

Just when the Mayoral election was getting a little bit dry, the fine people at Oddbins have lined up a special selection of wines relevant to each candidate:

Boris is apparently a Diane de Belgrave Haut-Medoc Bordeaux. “Just like the current Mayor, the wine has been around since 2008, is classic old-school with a posh upbringing and a fruity side” Guido would have gone with Blue Nun…

Thirsty Ken Livingston is paired off with a Cape Chamonix Pinotage. “The perfect wine for Ken must go with newts, carry real weight and also have legs – as it doesn’t look like he is ever going to retire.” He’ll have a crate of it, though surely he’s a Cuban rum?

Paddick is apparently a Berton Paddock Shiraz. The name aside apparently it has “liberal fruity characteristics”. Not your average jungle juice…

You may be able to win these in the caption contest tomorrow. Guido will get back to you on that…

George Galloway backs Guido’s campaign to end subsidised bars for MPs….

“I think these bars should be closed. No-one else can drink at their work. No-one else is allowed to drink alcohol while they’re working. Why are we? Moreover, at subsidised prices – as was. I don’t know what they are now, but when I was in here before they were ‘Life on Mars’ prices – 1970s prices. What are our values? I don’t drink for example. Downstairs tonight, in the parliament itself, there will be legislators blind drunk.”

Just as the media are on the hunt for senior Tories meeting people they shouldn’t be meeting, look who pops up in the White Swan:

Chin up boys.

Via the eagle-eyed Mini-Iain Dale @GrantTucker

As far as Guido can tell, the last time a Ministerial Statement was rushed on to the Friday agenda was when we bombed Libya. Given that the government has bombed quite enough already this week, unsurprisingly this rushed distraction job is not having the desired effect. It failed to push the Granny Tax off of the front pages and has gone down like the proverbial dodgy pint. Theresa May is not helping matters by constantly talking about “pre-loading” to describe drinking cheap alcohol at home before going out. It seems she alone has coined this phrase…

UPDATE: Yvette just gave the Home Secretary a good going over declaring that May “is being used as human shield and she should have said no”. The Shadow Home Secretary also confirmed that there have only been three statements on a Friday in last decade. Two were concerning war and the other Swine Flu.

The Sundays were full of promises and a pledge of a review into how to stop MPs boozing in the Commons.

This should surely be a no-brainer for the Speaker: scrap the £5.8m subsidy. Guido feels this one is beginning to get some traction.

They could call it the Joyce Review…

Filmed live at the Barley Mow, Westminster.

The Strangers’ Bar is advertising their

“premium coffee service available from 10.30am”.

Who could they be targeting with that one?