Afternoon:
10°c
I see it as a film trailer. A blighted desert landscape. Blowing dust. A lone figure in a crumpled suit.
"It was a time of conflict," a voice-over growls. "A time of uncertainty. Millions rallied to the banner of 'science'. 'Evidence' was threatening to take over drug policy for good... And then one man had the courage to fight back. That man was... Alan Johnson.
"They took on international law. They took on domestic law. Now, they're taking on truth itself. From the government that brought you WMD and The Court of Public Opinion, this Fall... it's: Say No To Science."
It scarcely needs repeating that the sacking of Professor David Nutt as chair of the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs was bad policy. But it was also culpably bad politics.
What does it do for your credibility to be a government that sacks independent scientific advisers for giving it independent advice on science? Two of Professor Nutt's ACMD colleagues have already walked out in protest, and others are expected to follow.
The Government's argument - at least, the only line that makes enough sense to be dignified with the word "argument"- is that Professor Nutt's intervention added up to "lobbying for a change of policy".
It was, therefore - in the view of the Government that had Alastair Campbell on a civil service salary! - a breach of impartiality.
That argument is thinner than a silver Rizla. The 1971 Misuse of Drugs Act says: "It shall be the duty of the Advisory Council [...] to give [...] advice on measures (whether or not involving alteration of the law) which in the opinion of the Council ought to be taken." Professor Nutt was doing precisely the job he was asked to do.
The real abuse of impartiality comes with a Government wasting money on "advice" it will ignore unless it gives the gloss of scientific authority to a policy it has already decided on. That's not seeking advice: that's buying party-political PR with public money.
But back to drugs. Professor Nutt's mistake was to point out that cannabis, ecstasy and LSD are verifiably less harmful than alcohol and, for that matter, than horse-riding. That "sends out the wrong message".
The reasoning seems to be that the public can be protected from drugs only by being scared with lies about how dangerous drugs are: that the public can't handle the truth, so to speak.
The sacking of Professor Nutt is widely described as populist. It's an odd sort of populism, isn't it? Effectively, the Home Secretary is bowing to the imagined will of a public that he doesn't himself regard as intelligent enough to understand the issue... and whose ignorance he is actively determined to foster.
It sounds funny. But - as his advisers will tell him would he but listen to them - the policy to which he's clinging for political advantage is killing people every day.
Spare us the Obamas' Scrabble secrets
Barack and Michelle Obama open their hearts to the New York Times about their marriage: the difficulties and Date Nights, the games of Scrabble, the pet names. Barack likes to call Michelle "FLOTUS", apparently.
Too much information, some are saying. "Is that all?"say I. The Obamas are sometimes compared to the Kennedys, but they are less exciting because they're too nice.
The best power couple ever was Henry II and Eleanor of Aquitaine, as imaginatively recreated on film in The Lion In Winter.
When Eleanor plotted with his children to overthrow him, Henry didn't suggest a Date Night or Family Scrabble. He set about slinging wife and offspring alike in the Tower.
"Well," Eleanor croaks in the film, after being bodily flung to the floor. "What family doesn't have its ups and downs?"
Lord Ashcroft — the stain that the Tories just won't come clean on
As I argued here not long ago, the Tories' billionaire sugar-daddy Lord Ashcroft has no business in our politics until he demonstrates that he has honoured his nine-year-old promise to become a resident UK taxpayer.
So far is he from being pressured by his party to come clean, though, it yesterday emerged his Lordship was playing tag-along on the Shadow Foreign Secretary's trip to the US.
Is he being groomed for a flattering foreign job in a Tory government, some wonder? Or did William Hague simply value his insight? To adapt Mrs Merton: "What was it that gave the Tories such a high regard for the wisdom of the billionaire Lord Ashcroft?"
Ashcroft's influence remains a gaping hole in David Cameron's claim to moral credibility or strength of leadership.
The longer he crosses his fingers and hopes the issue will go away, the weaker he looks.
• Parents who cheat to get their children into better schools should face stricter penalties, it's suggested. And the fury! "But they just want what's best for their kids," whine their supporters. What self-serving balls.
If you pretend to be Christian so your child can go to a faith school, or lie to fiddle a catchment area, you are stealing a resource intended for someone else's child.
Politicians eager to suck up to parents say piously that penalising cheats addresses the symptom rather than the cause.
True. And the cause of burglary might be deprivation, but we still lock up burglars. Starting with the symptom seems fine to me.
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Of course, what is most offensive of all about this sorry affair is the notion that the public is too stupid to be trusted with the truth about drugs.
Rather, the government would like to treat us all like small children and frighten us all with fairy stories about big bad wolves in the forest.
- Stuart Taylor, Oxford UK, 05/11/2009 16:47
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Parents give their parents address to get their children into a decent school. At least they are not the hypocrites of labour--blair, kelly, abbott, who sell their principles to get their chilodren into a decent school. Something here says a lot about labour's education policy.
- John Bell, Nottm, UK, 03/11/2009 01:41
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