Politicians and booze - how drunk or sober are MPs?

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The Mirror has revealed (or so it says) just how sloshed our MPs are:

Politicians and workers in the House of Commons guzzled £1.4m of booze last year, shock figures have revealed.

The newspaper goes on to list, will growing shrillness, just how many bottles of champagne, beer, cider and  wine were sold. And we are shocked!

But should we be so shocked (other than by the subsidy)?

There are 650 MPs and let's assume that the rest of the people employed at the House of Commons amount to a further 650 folk. I'm ignoring drinks bought for guests or visitors (although I'm sure a fair bit of the booze was in the form of such entertaining by MPs). That's a nice, tidy 1300 people who spent that shocking amount of £1.4m.

The House of Commons sits for about 150 days each year (again we can argue whether this is too many or too few) so on each day £9,300 is spent on booze there. This amounts to £7.15 per person - essentially a round of drinks. Even if only MPs are drinking that's only £15 each - is this really so shocking?

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