“Do you think Margaret Thatcher ever snorted cocaine before a big Commons occasion?” asked an acquaintance last week.

An 18th-century London scene as painted by Hogarth

My reply was near-instantaneous: “No!”

“Lots of MPs do,” continued my interlocutor, who is something of a self-confessed expert on the subject.

“How do you know?” I asked, slightly incredulous. The idea had never occurred to me.

“In my City days,” he replied, “it was de rigueur, and I’m ashamed to admit I partook of a sniffter or two on occasion. Now when I watch parliamentary performances I have doubts about quite a few of them.”

It’s well known, of course, that Chancellors of the Exchequer are allowed to carry a stiff brandy or Scotch into the House of Commons on Budget day. That’s always been a mystery to me as I find a stiff anything reduces intellectual performance.

There’s an apocryphal tale that Ken Clarke, then Chancellor, was discovered drunk in the Treasury at 2am on the night before the Budget. I could understand if that was Charlie Kennedy, although Clarke is a well-known bon viveur. It can’t be ruled out that he overestimated the dosage of his favourite cordial.

Charlie (the slang name for cocaine) is now so widely available in Britain, traces of it can be found on every banknote in circulation. Does that mean that traces of it are on everyone’s hands and in all wallets? We should be told. We might need it as a defence one day.

As someone who’s never touched the stuff, I marvel at the paraphernalia needed to take it. A credit card is said to be essential — not to buy the drug, but to make sniffable “lines” of the powder prior to ingestion. A £50 note is used to form a tube for inhalation (actually any denomination will do, except those old white fivers which are far too big for the average hooter). We mustn’t forget the possession of a nose, assuming it hasn’t rotted away by now.

MPs are not different from ordinary members of the public. Should we be more aware of the stresses on them and the opportunities to use drugs to enhance their performance? I think we should. It’s not just expenses we should worry about.

I have no idea whether any MP uses Charlie as a stimulant before entering the once-hallowed chamber of the House of Commons, but with 646 members, and given the widespread useage, it does seem more than likely. The good news is that all those sleeping Lords in the Other Place almost prove that cocaine may be virtually unknown on the red benches. We can’t rule out liquid refreshments, of course.

If all that is true, the expenses scandal becomes more explicable. But I won’t enlarge on that in case it’s deemed actionable. I will just state that in my always sober lifestyle, the purchase of aquatic second homes for a newt collection would be frivolous in the extreme. As would many of the other exotic claims by some of our more Hogarthian MPs.

Strange to say, when Edward Elgar decided to write an overture to the old City of London, he called it Cockaigne, and portrayed it as a fabulous country of luxury and delight.

Sounds reminiscent of wild expenses and £50 notes to me.

PS: Finally, for those of you who have written telling me off for deserting the cause just before a General Election, I will paraphrase Gerry Adams — I haven’t gone away, you know!

John Evans

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