My Lords, as I was having my supper, with my glass of water, it occurred to me that when I first joined the House of Lords, we often had the phenomenon of the after-dinner speech in which someone, very often from the Conservative side of the House, would deliver an extremely florid speech with high rhetorical flourishes. This Chamber has improved quite considerably over the past 15 years in its attitude to alcohol.
I am sorry to have to tell the noble Lord, Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe, that my noble friend Lord Gardiner tells me that President Putin has just announced that he is lowering the duty on alcohol in Russia, presumably for the reason that alcohol is what people wish to take refuge in when they are miserable for all sorts of reasons, and there are a lot of reasons why people in Russia are miserable at present.