Dilbert_X wrote:
The problem isn't alcohol its that they're turds.
Oligarch-Warlord Tony Blair wasn't a big drinker and look at all the people he killed.
these people were drinking every week, sometimes multiple times, not 'leaving the office' until 3-4am on a regular basis.
this office being the official residence of the leader of one of the world's oldest democracies, mind you, not a corporate unit near slough with a well-stocked pantry.
the prime minister would walk through the 'office' (which are of course also his private quarters), weaving past roomfuls of drunken revellers on a
weekly basis. he'd stop to drink a toast to someone, neck a glass, and carry on his way (likely to drink in his private inner sanctum, as well as god knows what else, probably). no moral sense that having your staff pissed up on a weekly basis in their place of work is perhaps unprofessional or unwise. that workplace culture would be considered rotten even in non-lockdown circumstances.
the drinking culture was systemic and problematic. fights broke out in downing street twice between drunken revellers. tell me alcohol, a drug which reduces inhibitions and makes people quick-tempered, isn't part of the problem when you have physical and verbal altercations in the very seat of government? not a good look.
the whole drinking culture of british politics, including members' bars in the houses of parliament, pissed-up old boys with red faces braying and hooraying in the chamber of the commons on an afternoon session, etc, is a bad victorian hangover. a modern democracy should not be ran like a gentleman's club between a bunch of entitled public school nitwits. and booze, as in frat cultures and 'greek life' societies in upper-middle class american college->corporate->government life, is a huge influencing factor and social rite. it's no accident that america has a heavy-drinking date-rapist on the supreme court. people from elite/ruling class backgrounds are socialized to think that getting smashed on the regular, even at work and in their professional capacity, is a-okay.
Last edited by uziq (2022-05-26 03:36:51)