Is it a bar - no it's a badger's bottom

By Nick Assinder BBC News Online political correspondent

Unless you live in a cave, you will know by now that the amount of booze MPs are sloshing away every day has recently skyrocketed.

According to veteran Tory backbencher, Sir Teddy Taylor, MPs are so bored with business that they spend all their time in the numerous bars getting dog faced before slumping, incoherent, in a corner.

Well it is not true. Repeat, it is NOT true.

Sir Teddy and others have simply got the wrong end of the stick and gone off half cock.

The story is based on figures from the Federation brewery, which supplies beer to the various licensed premises in the palace of Westminster.

What a waste

The figures show that the company is now supplying about twice as much booze as it used to.

But the simple reason for this is that they have taken over the job of providing not only their own beers, but a couple of other well known and popular lagers which used to be supplied by somebody else.

So, the overall amount provided by the company has increased, not the amount drunk.

The misunderstanding has deeply irritated the head of the Commons catering committee, the excellent Wolverhampton MP Dennis Turner.

He is trying to keep trade buoyant at a time when, as anyone who actually uses the bars in Westminster knows, consumption of alcohol has actually fallen for three consecutive years.

Now 10 years ago it was a very different matter......

A badger's bum

Meanwhile, one of the posher journalists in the Commons has deeply offended staff and customers of the only bar open to ordinary workers, the Sports and Social Club, by describing it as "rougher than a badger's backside".

I will not add to his embarrassment by naming him, but had he ever used the premises, he would have known that it is frequented not only by the working classes but also the police.

I am told that, once they find out what he looks like, he may find the next time he enters the Commons his pass is scrutinised more carefully and at far greater length than he is used to.

At least the staff in the S and S, as it's known to its regulars, have a sense of humour.

Notices have already gone up renaming it "The Badger's" and there are plans to introduce a speciality beer named, you've guessed it, "Badger's ale".

In the age of beer pumps sculpted to resemble eagles, shire horses and the like, I dread to think what this one will look like.

Too PC by far

We know the Labour Party tries its best to purge itself of politically incorrect language.

There are no more chairmen, only chairs, and every woman is a Ms.

There's nothing wrong with that. But maybe it has gone a little far.

Foreign Secretary Jack Straw is so saturated in PC language that, during his Commons statement on the Middle East, and without even hesitating, he spoke of: "Yasser Arafat's henchpeople."

A broken record

It was a happy coincidence that Chancellor Gordon Brown delivered his annual Mansion House speech on the day £billions were wiped off the markets.

The words stuck

He was able to reassure his audience that Britain was well placed to weather the storms, etc. etc.

And he trotted out many of his favourite little mantras, with one notable exception.

The words "boom and bust" were not uttered once.

A bit of last minute re-writing by any chance?

The wages of sin

Trade Secretary Patricia Hewitt has launched a new policy to stop fat cats' handing themselves huge pay rises.

In future, shareholders will be given an annual vote on company directors' salaries.

Unfortunately, a small typographical error crept into the DTI press release announcing the change.

It had Ms Hewitt talking about fat cats' "renumeration packages."

On second thoughts that's right - they have been adding zeros to the end of their salaries.

Ooer missus

Home Secretary David Blunkett has been pleased to announce the appointment of Kenneth Williams as one of Her Majesty's Inspectors of Constabulary.

'ere, no, not that one

Now, Norfolk's chief constable has undoubtedly heard them all - but here goes anyway.

"Ooer, is that a truncheon in your pocket, or are you just pleased to see me."

"Oooooo, 'ello; ooooo 'ello, ooooo 'ello....."

Oh, make your own up.

A question of persistence

Shadow chief secretary to the Treasury John Bercow has got a persistent bee in his bonnet about spending in (on?) Wales.

And he keeps tabling large numbers of parliamentary questions about the "cost-effectiveness of " things like the Local Authorities (Alteration of Requisite Calculations) (Wales) Regulations. [60986].

He has been getting short shrift from Welsh Secretary Paul Murphy who has answered, pointing out that these are matters for the Welsh assembly.

That is not going to stop beaver Bercow, who has now outdone himself by tabling no fewer than 126 similar questions about the cost effectiveness of regulations on everything from smoke control areas to oil and fibre plant seeds.

A clearly exasperated Murphy has simply referred him to his previous answer.

Perhaps the minister might now resort to the old trick of saying that answering such questions could only be done at "disproportionate cost" to the taxpayer.

Gossip

If you have any political gossip or information on what our MPs are up to, e-mail Nick Assinder (all mails will be treated as confidential).