Plastered Prime Minister: Does a boozing politician make a better world leader?

PITT the Younger downed three bottles of port a day yet he ruled Downing Street for 18 years. So does booze actually make politicians better?

Does fondness for drink make a better world leader?

Alcohol may not have improved democracy one single jot - but it has certainly made it less boring. The real question is whether a fondness for drink makes you a better world leader.  Prime Ministers seem to have had a pretty intimate relationship with alcohol down the years although drinking by incumbents at Number 10 has become scarcer of late.

The idea that you could booze all day while running the Empire was established by William Pitt (Pitt the Younger) who became Prime Minister in 1783 at the age of just 24; he remains the youngest person ever to be appointed PM. He governed the country for 18 years. He was brilliant, snooty and aloof. But the fascinating thing about him is that for every one of his years in office he was completely plastered.
At the time it was said of him, “Mr Pitt liked a glass of port very well, and a bottle better.” This was an understatement. Records attest that he drank — on medical advice — a bottle of port before breakfast, a second bottle before tea and a third before supper. With wine on top! He was understandably dead by the age of 46.
By the mid-20th century it took nerve to drink a lot if you were PM — and what you drank mattered to your image. Harold Wilson, the wily fox, would drink bitter and smoke a pipe in public but in private he preferred expensive brandy and cigars.
Jim Callaghan gave up drink during his premiership but he still proved one of most disastrous of prime ministers of all time. David Cameron has the occasional glass of wine or a pint but nothing to frighten his doctors. Tony Blair drank, but not excessively.

William Pitt, The Younger

"Bessie, I am drunk and you are ugly. But tomorrow I will be sober and you will still be uglyWinston Churchill

The last real drinker was Mrs Thatcher — aided and abetted by Denis, who famously liked a sharpener or three before dinner. While in office Maggie loved whisky and soda (no ice) while Denis was a gin and tonic man.
Denis invariably poured quadruples for her and it made her workload in the small hours bearable. Mrs Thatcher once said to a girl friend, “Dear, you cannot drink gin and tonic in the middle of the night. You must have whisky to give you energy.” She also had Vitamin B shots in her buttocks to keep her going.
After she was booted out of office, her thirst is said to have deepened. If true, she resigned herself to the fate of President Franklin Pierce, dumped by the Democratic party after his first term of office. His response has become a catchphrase for all whom life has thwarted: “There’s nothing left... but to get drunk.”
Churchill was the drinks industry’s all-time poster boy. Nothing deterred him. At a dry, non-smoking dinner hosted by the king of Saudi Arabia, he told his majesty: “My religion prescribes as an absolute sacred ritual smoking cigars and drinking alcohol before, after and if need be during all meals and the intervals between them.” He got his way.
Indeed Churchill quite happily gave the impression that the country in its darkest hour was run by an alcoholic — an image Hitler keenly promoted. But the Fuhrer didn’t realise that the British public’s attitude to booze was rather more relaxed than the Nazi party’s. Nobody minded much what kept Winnie going — indeed it amused them.

Winston Churchill

A lot of Churchill anecdotes turn out to be invented but one story about him that can be verified is his response to the accusation by Labour MP Bessie Braddock that he was drunk. The sozzled warlord famously retorted: “Bessie, I am drunk and you are ugly. But tomorrow I will be sober and you will still be ugly.”

Winston’s wit sparkled like the champagne and the brandy that he daily downed by the quart. Churchill was by no means the drunkest PM.
The Liberal Herbert Asquith gave him a run for his money. His nickname Squiffy became an adjective for the inebriated. Yet he still managed to run Britain for eight years.
Asquith used to visibly sway on his feet at Prime Minister’s Questions in the House of Commons, his nerves bolstered by Dutch courage. He even became the subject of a music hall ditty during World War I. “Mr Asquith says in a manner sweet and calm: another little drink won’t do us any harm”.
He was succeeded by the scheming David Lloyd George who was teetotal — albeit with a terrific thirst for other men’s wives.
Tory Prime Ministers have tended to be bigger boozers. The Labour front bench has had plenty of drunks but no drunks that were leaders. The alcoholic Arthur Greenwood — a Labour wartime minister of great charm and warmth — is today over shadowed by that epic boozer George Brown, a deputy Labour leader who might have become PM except that he had trouble remaining vertical.
He once attended a glittering official reception in Brazil complete with ambassadors and VIP guests in full court dress. George was hugely worse for wear and tottered toward a splendid creature in a long red dress and said: “Excuse me, but may I have the pleasure of this dance?”

Harold Wilson drinks a pint

The guest, who knew who he was, replied: “There are three reasons, Mr Brown, why I will not dance with you. The first, I fear, is that you’ve had too much to drink. The second is that this is not a waltz but the Peruvian national anthem and you are meant to be standing to attention. And the third reason is that I am the Cardinal Archbishop of Lima.”
Alcohol and power make a potent cocktail.
No sensible prime minister wants to end up like Boris Yeltsin, whose greatest challenge in office was not falling down the steps of his presidential jet.
A lot of Americans apparently think drink makes a president greater - but new data shows that presidential boozing is largely a myth. Indeed 20 per cent of US presidents turn out to have been teetotal. Interesting research conducted by a reputable health group called “Rehab 4 Alcoholism” rates presidential consumption on a one to five basis, five being a big boozer on the drink-o-meter.
Obama is rated one: he has the odd beer. Teetotal George W Bush gets nil. Modest drinker Ronald Reagan one. You have to go back to Richard Nixon for a score of five: he would apparently hit the bottle and make world-changing phone calls at night that he didn’t even remember the next day.
The now forgotten 19th century American president Martin Van Buren remains the king of the presidential soaks. “Blue Whisky Van,’ as he was known, moved about in a cloud of bourbon vapour and finally died of the drink.
One teetotaller was Jimmy Carter, who cleared every bottle out of the Oval office — offering his guests Coke and peanuts. History has not been kind to him.