Lifestyle London in the sun. There’s nothing quite like it: the parks, the lidos, the beer gardens, the smell of hot pavement and the ordeal of the pressure-cooker Tube. But for the City’s rich and famous denizens, there is one London summer phenomenon that cannot be beaten: the summer party .
With more green space and self-regarding institutions per capita than any other city on Earth, we are the world capital of the glamorous summer bash, where the great and good gather for drinks, canapés and gossip. With the summer party season kicking off this month, let us be your guide. At the apex of the political parties sits The Spectator summer party, where careers can be made or broken.
The Right-leaning magazine, sometimes dubbed the Tory Bible, has successfully cultivated an air of exclusivity around its party for politicians, top hacks and other public figures. The Conservative party leader, by tradition, attends and last year there were two PMs in attendance — Liz Truss and her successor Rishi Sunak , notably not crossing paths in the garden of the magazine’s office which overlooks St James’s Park. And for ambitious politicos, crashing the party has been a tradition in itself.
For example, one of the Prime Minister’s close advisers, in his salad days, broke in by dressing up as one of the drinks servers. The problem with this strategy quickly became obvious — that few of the esteemed guests wanted to talk to a server! This year’s party was inauspiciously penc.
