Keir Starmer is fond of a beer. We knew he liked beer when we knew nothing much about his policies except that they were in favour of everything that was good and against everything that was bad. We could be excused for feeling that the impending coronation of Andy Burnham offers more of the same. A Labour MP told the Today programme that Burnham explaining his policies was irrelevant given he’d ‘already shown he’s a very successful politician’. What we do know is that Burnham, too, likes beer. He and Starmer eagerly lean on the one point where their pose and their personality agree – Guinness for Burnham, real ale for Starmer.  

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Who doesn’t feel that the drinks a politician chooses, for private enjoyment or public performance, tell us something about what leaks from their soul, and not necessarily what they want us to see? Farage’s public love of beer seems too contrived, so strenuously repeated that I’m now nervous of seeing him whenever I walk past my local. (A Campaign for Real Ale (CAMRA) award winner, two doors away and always welcoming, isn’t enough to tempt me from domestic comforts, usually Burgundian.) Those close to Farage suggest he prefers wine, gin, and Champagne, although I found some accusations of Cava. Such are........

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