Affairs, plots, gropes and punch-ups: Strangers’ Bar in Westminster is a notorious hotbed of outrageous behaviour

Strangers’ Bar in the Palace of Westminster has been at the centre of affairs, plots, gropes and punch-ups for decades.

It is both the best-situated and most notorious bar in the country. But incendiary new claims that an MP tried to use a date rape drug on its premises could finally give the authorities an excuse to shut the historic watering hole for ever.

Commons Speaker Sir Lindsay Hoyle is not a fan of Strangers’, having grown tired of the constant flow of scandal it produces.

So when Sue Gray, the then Chief of Staff to Sir Keir Starmer, asked Sir Lindsay if he could shut the bar permanently in the run-up to last year’s General Election, he listened carefully to her arguments.

Now the Speaker – who restricts himself to an occasional, solitary glass of champagne – has ordered Strangers’ to close while a security review is completed into claims by a parliamentary researcher that her drink had been spiked.

The Mail on Sunday understands that the suspect is an MP, although it is…