Use Your Illusion

This is the image of the most senior drugs official in the United Nations, Antonio Maria Costa, Executive Director of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime.

He was persuaded to write a response to the slew of Observer articles in favour of reforming the UN's ancient and obsolete drug control laws. His opening line underlined his mastery of obfuscation, deflection and deceit.

"The debate between those who dream of a world without drugs and those who hope for a world of free drugs has been raging for years. " The simple truth is, no such debate exists between these two utopian positions.

A world without drugs is an impossible goal because mankind has always sought some degree of intoxication and always will. It is not a dream but an illusion. It should not be the starting point of discussion when it has no place in reality.

Equally misleading his Costa's characterisation of reformers as people who would like a free-for-all on drugs where anyone is able to get as blitzed as they wish anytime. The drug reform lobby may hold differing opinions on the appropriate levels of controls but the shared objective is to reduce the harm from drugs. No serious organisation advocates abandoning all control and regulation.

So Costa's initial premise is wrong and what follows is a path through tortuous logic, with highly partial use of statistics and general points about human nature which defy all sense. Costa argues reforms would "unleash an epidemic of addiction". He asserts cocaine production over the last 10 years has stabilised omitting to mention 28,000 murders in the cocaine trade in Mexico in the last four years.

Recently in UK, there have been some encouraging signs from establishment figures like Sir Ian Gilmore and media outlets (Independent) who have declared an end to the fallacy of 'controlling' drugs as anything other than a disaster. Unfortunately the Government's latest thinking on a Drugs Strategy is as idealogical as the UN with great emphasis on abstinence not treatment. They even suggest "whole family intervention" where all the relatives of a drug user arrive at a pre-arranged place and surround him. No doubt it will be God's love that doth save his soul.

One big problem with Costa's and IDS's perspective is the assumption taking drugs is all about addiction. Most drug use does not involve dependence. Ten million people in Britain have tried cannabis but levels of addiction are present in only a few thousand. Ecstasy is not addictive, even most cocaine users can take it or leave it.

There seems to have most anxiety, in recent years, about cannabis in the country prompting cross party support for increasing penalties on a drug Gordon Brown called "lethal." It is perverse that cannabis use has plummetted since 1998 falling by 45%. It seems astonishing the long line of drug Ministers have not sought to trumpet this success. But this war on drugs is more like the perpetual war in Oceania in Orwell's 1984. For the war to continue Governments must continue to fight and fail.

Staying Power

Last July, I wrote about the curious news cycle surrounding the story of NOTW phone tapping.

It was no surprise News International papers did not touch it but then neither did the Telegraph or the Mail. The BBC ran a sensational story about Rebekah Wade being bugged which immediately disappeared.

Now the issue has been rejuvenated following an interview in the New York Times of former Screws hack, Sean Hoare. And we see the pattern repeating itself with certain titles scrupulously not reporting this major story.

The papers probably have different motives; editors in the Murdoch stable are more anxious about accusations of illegality and denials of journalistic malfeasance by their sister paper NOTW. Others simply don't wish to expose the PM's Comms supremo Andy Coulson and formr editor of NOTW, to any more damaging allegations.

We already know hundreds of prominent people had their mobile phones tapped illegally. Some like Max Clifford and PFA chair Gordon Taylor were paid off handsomely. John Prescott was a highly likely candidate for being bugged but finds the Met Police won't tell him whether he was or not.

If they think for a minute JP's loss of Ministerial status in May has diminished his ability to get to the airwaves and embarass them, then the Plod are very much mistaken. The entire behaviour of senior Met officers in the context of this inquiry has been bizarre.

They appear to be covering for the unsatisfactory level of scrutiny they applied to general journalistic practise at NOTW following the conviction and imprisonment of former hack Glenn Mulcaire. It must be at least doubtful he was the only one carrying out all the phone taps so others higher up still have questions to answer about how much was authorised, by whom and to what level. The unfortunate impression the Met are giving is protecting the Tory's press secretary.

The police and No 10 all point incessantly to "no new evidence". Tory Minister, Alan Duncan, listed all parties who agreed there was nothing more to investigate including the less than impartial "News International lawyers."

The words of Sean Hoare to the NYT were dismissed out of hand because of his previous problems with drink and drugs as if he were still drunk and stoned now. I heard him interviewed and he sounded quite lucid and I don't think he was hallucinating when he said he was expected to access celebrities' voicemail.

Labour have not gained much political capital from some of the Cons policy slip ups but here is a golden chance to get at Cameron's cabal. Prescott means it when he says he will initiate a judicial review if the matter is not progressed. That's what this scandal needs, a proper court case when Coulson can be put on the stand under oath.

Everybody Out

It would take a quite an extra-ordinary circumstance for me to volunteer to share a (twin) hotel room with a male work colleague. And I would never chose to do so if the company was going to pick up the tab and I had several million in the bank anyway.

So to do so "occassionally" could be described as somewhat eccentric behaviour during the election campaign by the shadow Foreign Sec. Now he is First Secretary of State, he should be a little more circumspect about his associations as a married man.

The blogger, Guido Fawkes, has made a series of perfectly legitimate observations based on an FOI request and journalistic inquiry about Hague and his close friend, adviser and colleague, 25 year-old graduate Christopher Myers.

Fawkes described Hague's statement detailing his wife, Ffion's difficulty in conceiving as "nuclear". Certainly a well-chosen word, for very rarely, if ever, is BBC's Nick Robinson lost for words like he was last night.

The Evening Standard suggested today he drafted this personal statement, stressing his heterosexuality, after taking advice from the machiavellian George Osborne. A tangled web indeed. At least George did not, seemingly, advise a photo op of little Hague playing rugger and relaxing after with a plate of rare roast beef and pint of frothy Yorkshire bitter.

The commentators, who have been around related stories for nearly twenty years, have failed to attack Guido and have instead considered Hague's other friendship with Sebastian Coe.

Hague has clearly pinned his entire political career on that statement; it was more of an instruction to media organisations to cease speculating but seven front pages ensued. As Max Clifford said, "it turned a small story into a big one."

Ever the one to support the "normal" MP, Norman Tebbit described Hague as "naive at best, foolish at worst." It wasn't quite clear whether he meant sharing a room with another man or denying its significance.

A Bit Rich

Many of Labour's most equitable achievements were hardly publicised. The massive home improvement overseen by John (now Lord) Prescott passed without barely any acknowledgement. The same could be said for the Supporting People Budget administered by the National Housing Federation.

The million or so people the fund helped to be housed are pretty close to the most vulnerable in society - the homeless, those recovering from mental illness, those who have escaped from trafficking gangs and severe domestic violence. Ths is the kind of work a compassionate Government carries out quietly and its returns are only measured in knowing they did the right thing in protecting the weak and oppressed.

Coalition plans to lump 40 percent off the NHF budget are no surprise. These Ministers have quickly got out the habit of making any judgement on the human worth of current spending projects - their determination is to continue reducing the deficit without regard to the social and economic catastrophe which will ensue.

When it comes to identifying these areas of wasteful spending, who better then Billionaire retailer Philip Green to tell Ministers where to wield the axe? Green certainly can be relied on to dispense with sentimental affectation.

Cameron's decision to use Green as a kind of Whitehall troubleshooter is just the worst idea for achieving what they laughably call "fair and equitable savings". Green cannot have the first idea of the value of social services to the poor and elderly. He would hardly be likely to casually pick up that knowledge in between massive takeovers of retail firms.

One hopes it is a gimmick but I am sure he will be allowed at some point to express his judgement on the undeserving poor. The only hope is the counter culture to commercial success aka the Civil Service, frustrates him at his every turn.

Resistance is Low

I suppose you can't exactly blame David Cameron for pressing on with such boldness on his plans to slash frontline public services. He has faced such little vocal opposition, he may yet have convinced himself there is something of a consensus for the imminent steep rise on the country's levels of poverty and joblessness.

By his recent suggestion, Council houses should be leased, implies he views social housing as one stage of a family's property needs before they go onto own more substantial dwellings; here he confuses the safety net for the trampoline.

The Tory Government has fallen into the ideological trap of considering the economy of the nation as no diferent in principle from that of a household. Cameron said just yesterday, "We cannot live beyond our means," as if the lower income groups had been recklessly extravagant in recent years. But when he spills out this drivel, there is barely a murmur from the opposition and media in reminding us the huge debt derives from the six elephants in the room: the bailed out banks which cost us the taxpayer about £100Bn to support their profligacy.

Of the five Labour leadership candidates, it pains me to say, only Ed Balls has barked back at any discernable volume. On the considerable risk this sixth-form economics experiment will tip the country back into recession, Balls said, "Cameron is ...wrong to say the most urgent priority for Britain is to slash the deficit..[it] should be to secure Britain's economic recovery by boosting jobs and growth."

And yet it falls to the oldest radical of all, Tony Benn (above) to organise the "resistance". His article in the guardian today (www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/Aug/04/time-to-organise-resistance-now) sets out in cold anger what those who oppose the Tories should be doing. His new group already has substantial intellectual support, now its aims need to be considered by the wider public as mainstream view. After all it's only our future.

Opposites Attract

In 1812, Governor Gerry of Massachusetts (left) carved up the constituencies of the State in a shameless attempt to rig his re-election. The term 'Gerrymander' derives from the fact one seat was drawn so unwieldy, it somewhat resembled a salamander.


History lesson complete, the final row of this Parliament on the final day before recess concerned the proposed referendum on moving to the AV system for elections or a "pathetic excuse for a voting system" as Clegg used to call it.

Although Labour was the only party to include a committment for AV in its manifesto, it has no option but to oppose the bill as it has all sorts of Tory electoral fixes bolted on to it. The drive to equalise the constituencies, although worthy in principle, will have to defy existing county boundaries and make some rural one bigger than whole counties, making life effectively impossible for the sitting MP.

As Comrade Straw alluded to at DPMQs, it will mean making a hybrid constituency, half made of some of the Isle of Wight and the remainder a chunk of Hampshire. The Cabinet Office drone, Mark Harper, answered that point rather dimly, "we are not proposing to move anybody who currently lives on the IoW". Neither are they proposing to allow them to have their say as that pesky local consultation thing would inevitably delay the process.

Clegg has still not explained why it is neccessary to reduce the number of MPs from 650 to 600 although one suspects it is part of the math in stitching up the constituncies. The saving of £12m is not remotely proportionate to the loss of democratic representation. MPs are already overwhelmed by constituency inquiries and now they will volunteer to add ten percent to that workload.

The Cons also are living under a strange dichotomy, they will fight to the death to allow the Lib-Dems their little referendum to take place then at the actual vote, oppose it.

The Bill should still pass, the referendum will probably be delayed past the proposed 5 May but will be almost certainly lost. It's a classic three card trick from the Tories. The defeat of electoral reform will be a sad indictment of how politically inept the Lib-Dems are proving in Government.

Vandals at the Gate

Thatcherism, as a brand of economic and political philosophy. was borne out of a fundamental re-appraisal of policy by senior Tories following their two electoral defeats in 1974.

The main architects were Keith Joseph and Enoch Powell who fundamentally rejected Keynes in favour of a Monetarist approach. It proved to be a highly divisive and transformative force for change in UK. But at least, you could say it was intellectually coherent.

The current Coalition Government appear to be acting with no such higher strategy other than tearing down any constructive organisation established under Labour by labelling them "wasteful" or "bureaucratic". Each day seems to bring another crass decision of incredible ineptitude. In many cases the organisations to be abolished are, by any measure, revenue-raising for HM Treasury and not remotely a burden on public finances.

The decision by that gormless, grinning buffoon Jeremy Hunt to scrap the National Film Council defies any sense whatever. Established in 2000, the Council has invested lottery money in about 900 films and has repaid its original money at about a ratio of 5:1. The Chief Executive, John Woodward, was not even consulted to present his case for defence to these Ministers.

The Sustainable Development Commission is a smaller operation with a budget of only £3m but has shown to be highly effective in identifying huge areas of savings in fuel, water and waste particularly by Government. Again scrapped, without evaluation, by the stroke of a pen. By these standards, the intended investment in sporting prowess for the London 2012 Olympics looks extremely vulnerable. Presumably the message which needs to be sent out to athletes is that Gold medals are only truely earned if by an entirely free-market approach.

Certainly this Government is acting swifter and more ruthlessly than Thatcher's first Government of 1979-83. But its manner is haphazard, capricious and at times just plain self-defeating.

History and politics can always surprise us but by their unneccesary perniciousness this Government now makes the Iron Lady, Thatcher's look quite amenable and sympathetic.