Sean O'Grady: Mr Kennedy isn't the only one who enjoys a dram

Some years ago I spent a brief but enjoyable time working for the Liberal Democrats in Westminster. From what I can remember from that time, whenever I met Charles Kennedy in a bar or restaurant I was more drunk than he was. No, I'm not bragging. What I mean to say is that neither he nor I were that drunk, really. When Kennedy says that he enjoys a "sociable" drink that was and is so.

I hope he enjoys a sociable and moderate intake of the fruit of the barley at his wedding reception today, and I hope that Jeremy Paxman's careless line of questioning on Newsnight the other night hasn't left too much of a pall over proceedings. Careless, that is, because if you ask someone "at home alone do you finish off a bottle of scotch?" and they answer "no", as Kennedy did, then you are hardly in a position to contradict them.

Careless also because the research that Paxman's team did was not used properly. When Paxman put it to Kennedy that every MP they had talked to said "I hope he's sober" about their forthcoming interview, they should have asked themselves a couple of questions. First, what lies behind that quip? The insinuation is obvious. Second, is the insinuation correct? Is it still correct? Why are these MPs saying that? What is their motive in putting that sort of smear about? Is it just a teensy-weensy bit possible that some of them might be a little disgruntled, feeling a little offended about being excluded from the inner circle? Is it nothing more than nastily motivated and stale gossip?

My guess, for what it's worth, is that it is mostly just that. Don't forget that Kennedy became an MP at the age of 23 – 23! – and has served almost as long an apprenticeship for the top job as the Prince of Wales. He was obviously bored kicking his heels as spokesman on health or agriculture, and when he became leader the pressure might have been felt. He has always had a healthy liking for good company and conversation and an unhealthy appetite for staying up too late, smoking and drinking. He may well have overdone it in the past. But most of the gossip acknowledges that he had a very successful election campaign and has been cleaning his act up. At any rate his new wife, Sarah Gurling, won't, I think, put up with too much nonsense.

The real drink problem in British politics is the use of alcohol as a coolant for the Westminster hothouse. Someone once told me that the special atmosphere you sense at Westminster is to do with the place being situated at the confluence of two ley lines.

Whatever, the inhabitants of the village need something to relieve the pressure, and drink is the answer. The bars and clubs are plentiful, open pretty much all hours and the beer is very cheap. Much business goes on in those drinking holes, especially by the Labour whips. Sessions tend to be levelling experiences in more senses than one, as MPs and peers and researchers and journalists mix more readily than when "on duty". Party lines are crossed. Gossip is exchanged, plenty of it, oddly enough, about MPs with a drink problem. Terrifying stories about the sexual tastes of our legislators are told. Romance, in one shape or another, has even blossomed in the unlikely environs of the press gallery bar or the Sports and Social Club.

But while that political party is still swinging, things are not as bad – or good, depending on your point of view – as once they were. My colleague Alan Watkins of The Independent on Sunday has written nostalgically about the demise of the traditional (ie boozy) political lunch. No longer do many ministers emulate the late Tony Crosland who, as Alan recalls, "would customarily start lunch with a dry martini, that is, a treble or quadruple gin, go on to share a bottle of retsina ('let's leave the vintages to Roy,' he would say) and finish off with a cup of coffee and a glass of brandy before returning to his ministry to work till between seven and eight."

Perhaps we should be grateful that we no longer have quite so many politicians like that, or like the legendary George Brown, who, on a trip to Peru in the 1960s as the Labour Foreign Secretary, approached at a reception what he took to be an attractive figure resplendently dressed in a coloured frock. He asked for a dance. He was turned down with the response: "First, you are drunk. Second, this is not a waltz, it is the Peruvian national anthem. And third, I am not a woman. I am the Cardinal Archbishop of Lima."

Or Alan Clark, who gabbled his way through a Commons statement on unemployment after a wine tasting. Preparing for his duties "didn't seem very important as we 'tasted' first a bottle of '61 Palmer, then 'for comparison' a bottle of '75 Palmer then, switching back to '61, a really delicious Pichon Longueville. By 9.40 I was muzzy." Clark was pulled up on a point of order by Clare Short. Tellingly, Short couldn't actually accuse Clark of being a drunk because that is unparliamentary language, as serious as calling someone a liar.

The truth is that most MPs and journalists behave themselves most of the time, but there'll be periods in most lives when drinking becomes excessive. There are two or three members of the Cabinet about whom that is true. Paxman hasn't, as far as I know, put questions about drink to them, and they're actually running government departments. He picked on Kennedy, who is rather less powerful. That was unfair.

s.o'grady@independent.co.uk