Laws, only for the poor

You don’t understand Denis

Former Minister Denis MacShane was agitated yesterday because drug using celebrities are not being banged-up. He said prosecuting celebrities would encourage Britons to think twice about taking drugs. MacShane was a  Foreign Office  minister from 2002-2005. "Kate Moss, Amy Winehouse and the Notting Hill millionaires" should all be prosecuted he told a Commons seething with middle-age rage.

Denis has had a sheltered life. No-one has told him that the drugs laws are a farce. It’s years since anyone was prosecuted for taking drugs. Users get done for stealing in order to buy drugs. Rich people do not need to steal. Only poor people end up in court. The police long ago sensibly gave up of prosecuting people for just using drugs. C’mon Denis, these are the rules.

The comedian Peter Cook was a heroin addict. He could afford a supply of heroin of known strength and purity. Prosecution was never a possibility. In these circumstances, heroin was no threat to his health. The booze was.

The Police have long ago abandoned any pretence of carrying out the idiotic drugs laws that parliament passes. A senior Policeman Paul Pearce from Brighton was guarded in his comments at a conference in the capital city this morning. But he did express his irritation with headline seeking politicians.

It must be ten years since any police force prosecuted a sick person for using medicinal cannabis. Yet the law has not changed. Tens of thousands of MS sufferers are growing their own. The police know that no court in the land would convict a sick person for taking a medicine of their choice.

Yet parliament blithely gratifies itself by passing harsh unenforecable  laws. Politicians feel good when acting tough. Reclassifying cannabis will convince some MPs they have done something worthwhile. Few choose to use, or not to use, a drug because of its classification. These are empty political charades that unconnected to real life on the streets. All four speakers at this morning’s drug conference ridiculed the cannabis re-classification proposal as ‘evidence free.’  Radio Four and the sketch writers all reported yesterday’s description of the classification of magic mushrooms as ‘very stupid.’

Parliament is slipping into a parallel dimension, rather like Adolf Hitler in his final days in the Berlin Bunker. He ordered armies into battle, commanded ships to go to sea, and sacked generals. All to no avail. Parliament postures and legislates. No-one is listening and the police will act only on common sense measures.

One of the biggest and dangerous increases in drug use took place among young women in the nineties. There was an increase of between 30% and 40% in the numbers of teenage women smoking tobacco in  four countries.. They were aping the Amy Winehouses of that time and trying to become waif-like thin.

Being young is about hero worship, risk taking and challenging the older generation. Any persecution of celebrities prompted by Denis MacShane’s tantrum is likely to incite fresh drug taking.

Forbidden fruit is delicious and irresistible to the young.

Stick to Foreign Affairs, Denis.

Blairphiliacs plot

Once there were 50.

Now there are 35. Tomorrow there may be 20. It not the just the arm twisting that may be reducing the Labour 42 days rebels. There is a highly suspicious enthusiasm from the Uber Blairphiliacs (UBs) to see a Gordon Brown defeat.  The UBs are not loved on the left, the habitat of the 42 days rebels. Their motives are not pure.

Some minds have been changed because of Labour loyalties. Mostly women MPs are shifting because they do not want the party to suffer another kicking. There have been several summonses to 10 Downing Street for interviews with the leader. Some have been bribed, bullied or bamboozled into changing their minds. At least one will cast a David Taylor vote and vote for and against. That’s the only way to register an abstention.

It’s difficult to ignore a call from the Prime Minister. One MP did last time on the 90 days. He ignored three text messages. These were followed by a phone from the Chief Whips asking him to drop in for a chat. He called in and in the course of his pep talk from the Chief Whip, he was handed a phone and told ‘The PM is on the line for you.’ It did not work. He still voted against as he will tomorrow.

Scoop Cornock rang me today and asked whether I had been called to Gordon’s Den. Of course I have not. I made my views clear at last week’s PLP. I would feel insulted if Gordon’s minion had me in any category other than ‘unbribeable’.

Comments

[Will S]

I'm a bit disappointed that you haven't commented on Balls' views in the Guardian today. Since you're a free-thinking Labour MP your views would be very intersting and informative.

[Will S]

Sorry, I should have specified, that I mean his views on underperforming schools.

[Tony]

I think I read somewhere that politics was the art of the possible. I'm very hopeful that this shameful 42 days proposal is voted down (although it seems 65% of the electorate don't mind) but what is the biggest shame is the rise in pensioner and child poverty. This is not an imagined threat, a possiblility of a problem - I'd rather a government focussed on the really important issues affecting hundreds of thousands people now rather than expending so much effort on a proposal to go against hundreds of years of common law to lock people up without charge for the longest period in the common law world. I'm ashamed on that - but not as much as I am of the rise in poverty. You have to wonder if Gordon Brown is listening - I don't think so

[paulflynn]

Thanks Tony. As you rightly say, 42 days is not a top priority issue. But the Prime Minister is still imprisoned by his Blairite heritage. Out of misplaced loyalty, Labour MPs who opposed the 90 days may reluctantly vote for 42 because. I do not think that the Government will be defeated. Deals with the DUP and many individuals will probably swing it the Government's way.