11 February, 2007

Cameron the dope.

When I first saw the story that David Cameron - the liberal we have somehow been saddled with as leader of the Conservative Party - smoked dope at Eton, I misread it as Cameron was a dope at Eton. My instinctive reaction was so what, we know he is a dope but I bet Boris Johnson was a bigger one at Eton. Anyway, we can leave that to any amateur psychiatrists.

If Cameron had graduated to snorting coke at his Islington dinner parties, or shooting heroin before speaking in the House of Commons, or taking LSD prior to focus group meetings, or even slinking off to an opium den when Teresa May got a bit too much for him, that might be a story. At least it would explain some of the party's present policies. But he did none of things, as far as we know.

The Independent basically has a story that a 15 year old school boy smoked dope. It has a few Cameron drug quotes at the end of the piece, trying to nail him for hypocrisy, and failing. So long as nobody can dig up a really damaging Cameron quote on cannabis, it is a non-story which will excite briefly the chattering classes and their equally vacuous media but will have little effect in the real world.

Here are the links for your entertainment.

The Independent, which broke the story in a serialised biography of Cameron, despite claims by the Mail on Sunday to an exclusive.

The Observer, the Times and the Sunday Telegraph also weigh in with what seem to be hastily written articles cobbled together after the Indy hit the streets.

The BBC has been leading its radio news with the story and, no doubt, will have little else on its television current affairs programmes and its 24 TV news channel.

Prepare for much sanctimonious comment over the next few days.

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