(Nearly) every political party leaders’ favourite London pub

I’m sure when the leaders of the most powerful political parties in the country — or at least their closest advisers — saw a message notification from The Londoner, they expected something dramatic. A damning expose, perhaps, or maybe an urgent need to speak out about a new crisis affecting the capital.

Instead, the request was simple: where do you like to grab a pint when you’re in the city? You see, with local elections coming up next year, and the UK’s political landscape more fractured than ever, deciding who to vote for has become a real headache. I thought the best way to streamline things might be to stop judging the calibre of our current political leaders by traditional metrics — manifestos, policies or public pronouncements —  and try a new tack: judging their taste in pubs. I’ve long been a believer that there’s no better way to see deep into a person’s soul than to hear about what they do and where they go when nobody’s watching. In other words: where they hunker down to sink a pint. 

After compiling my answers, I nobly vowed to undertake an act of public service journalism and check out their preferred London boozers for myself. And so on one blustery, grey Saturday in early December, I set off on the most influential pub crawl in my life.