Pints, politics and behind the scenes with Chancellor John Healey

There are some things you can almost set your watch by in British politics.

Someone will promise to "get Britain growing". Someone else will insist they are "listening to working people".

And every so often, a Chancellor will mysteriously develop an overwhelming desire to be photographed holding a pint.

Step forward or own local MP John Healey.

Just days into the job, the Rawmarsh and Conisbrough MP was pictured in an Essex pub with Prime Minister Andy Burnham, each clutching a pint as they unveiled a 20 per cent cut in business rates for pubs, clubs and live music venues.

The message could hardly have been clearer if it had been served with a packet of pork scratchings or a bag of cheese and onion.

Help for pubs? Better find a pub.

Of course, an inn is hardly new ground for Mr Healey, 66.

Previously he has invited Australia’s Defence Minister Richard Marles for pints at the Rockingham Arms in Wentworth, the US Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin to London's Trafalgar Tavern and Germany’s Defence Minister Boris Pistorius to the capital's Traitor’s Gate pub.

He's a normal pub-type bloke.

And he isn't the first Chancellor to discover the political value of a well-timed pint.

George Osborne was at it after his famous "penny off a pint" Budget. Boris Johnson and Rishi Sunak reached for the beer glasses to promote draught beer duty relief. Jeremy Hunt made his own pub appearances to sell support for hospitality.

Different governments. Different politicians. Same prop.

The pint has become Westminster's equivalent of the hard hat and high-vis jacket – a visual shortcut that says, "We're backing ordinary people," before anyone has uttered a word.

But sharing a drink with friends and workmates obviously comes with the job for the Yorkshireman.

Long before he became Chancellor, he was raising a glass of Chantry Brewery's Bailey Bridge Pale Ale at Parkgate to mark Beer Day Britain and has long been a supporter of the Rotherham Real Ale and Music Festival.

Not everyone, though, needs an official announcement as an excuse to pose with a pint.

Nigel Farage has turned it into something of a personal trademark, to the point where many voters could probably identify his favourite pint more readily than his latest policy announcement.

Rother Valley MP Jake Richards posed for a photo enjoying a livener at a brewery in Worksop on Saturday.

Healey's pint may have been carefully choreographed, but at least it was delivered with a business rates announcement attached.

Whether it's a Chancellor promoting tax cuts, a Prime Minister backing pubs or the Reform UK leader on the campaign trail, the humble pint remains one of the cheapest – and most reliable – props in the political armoury.