Disraeli to Reeves: how each Chancellor drank their way through the Budget

Coffee House Shots

The Spectator

News, Politics, Government, Daily News

4.4 • 2.1K Ratings

🗓️ 29 November 2025

⏱️ 34 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Throughout the years, the only person permitted to drink inside the House of Commons is the Chancellor, so what has been the tipple of choice for each resident of Number 11 dating back to Benjamin Disraeli? Following Rachel Reeves Budget this week, Michael Simmons and James Heale drink their way through the ages, discuss the historical context of each Budget, and question whether Rachel Reeves has the toughest job of them all.

This episode was originally recorded for Michael Simmons's new podcast Reality Check. Search Reality Check wherever you subscribe to your podcasts.

Become a Spectator subscriber today to access this podcast without adverts. Go to spectator.co.uk/adfree to find out more.

For more Spectator podcasts, go to spectator.co.uk/podcasts.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Subscribe to The Spectator in our Black Friday Flash Sale and you'll get 12 weeks of the magazine, along with full access to all of our online content, for just £12. Not only that, but we'll also send you a bottle of Johnny Walker Black Label Whiskey worth £30 on the shops, absolutely free.
0:18.3	Hurry though, this ridiculously good offer, ends on the 1st of December.
0:22.6	Go to www.spictator.com.ukuk forward slash Friday.
0:35.2	Hello and welcome to Coffee House Shots. I'm Michael Simmons, the Spectator's economics editor.
0:40.8	For this very special Saturday Shots, we thought we'd present a discussion that I had with our
0:45.3	deputy political editor James Heel, looking at the history of the budget for each of the drinks the
0:49.9	Chancellor chose to drink. This was originally filmed for my new podcast Reality Check.
0:55.5	Search Reality Check wherever you subscribe to your podcasts or check out our YouTube channel for the
0:59.8	video. I hope you enjoy it. Now, the Chancellor in the run-up to the budget has been repeatedly
1:06.0	making this claim. She's in a never-before-seen situation. COVID, the war in Ukraine, energy prices
1:14.7	mean that our fiscal position is worse than it's ever been before. Now, normally on the show,
1:22.4	we use graphs and stats to check these claims. But today we're going to use facts and specifically
1:30.7	we're going to use history. And to do that, I'm delighted to be joined by the spectator's
1:38.2	history buff and also our deputy political editor, James Hill. James, thanks for joining Reality Check. Now, there's a bit of
1:47.2	an elephant in the room that we should just address straight off. Why do we have a row of drinks
1:53.4	in front of us? Well, I know that if you're analysing the budget, Michael, you might be considering
1:57.3	drink at the current time, given the very tough fiscal medicine that is facing Rachel Reeves.
2:03.0	But traditionally, the Charter de Cheka is the only person in House Commons who is allowed to have a drink only on Budget Day.
2:10.0	And so we decided to honour that by having a range of sort of budget tipples when it comes to Budget Day.
2:15.9	And now look, you haven't been able to smoke in the House of Commons since the 1690s.
2:19.4	The tradition we believe of drinking at the budget comes from around the 1850s or thereabouts.
2:24.3	And so the first one we can find, doing a bit of analysis and history research,
	...

Transcript will be available on the free plan in 23 days. Upgrade to see the full transcript now.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from The Spectator, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of The Spectator and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.