London | The Aussie schooner is an “abomination of a vessel” that only a “metric maniac” or “interfering busybody” would impose on British beer drinkers, an intemperate former Conservative minister has told the House of Lords.

Lord Andrew Sharpe’s unexpected intervention – he also mused that the glorious imperial pint might date all the way back to “the Anglo-Saxon thanes, when they were on a session in their village hall” – has reignited the age-old, Ashes-esque debate over which is the finest size for a glass of lager or ale.