From Prohibition-busting cocktail parties to all-night raves, illegal gatherings have been at the centre of modern culture for decades. So why do they still have the power to shock?

For more than a month now, the press has been full of stories of “illegal” parties in Downing Street. The government, we are told, has almost ground to a halt because of the scandal.

Given the coverage, one might easily get the impression that the law-breaking bash is a recent invention, something that could only happen in lockdown, driven by privilege and an unhealthy sense of entitlement. Yet the modern party began life as a crime just over a century ago, when the Volstead Act banned the production and sale of alcohol in the US. As the New York Times explained in 1920:

You cannot carry a hip flask.
You cannot give away or receive a bottle of liquor as a gift.
You cannot take liquor to hotels or restaurants and drink it in the public dining rooms.
You cannot buy or sell formulas or recipes for homemade liquors.
You cannot …

“Oh,” said the Bright Young People. “Oh, oh, oh.”

“It’s just exactly like being inside a cocktail shaker,” said Miles Malpractice.