Unrepentant

I have mentioned an argument that has been going on in another part of the forest, and various people here have wanted to know more about it. Well, we've held our own discussion here on second hand smoking, which was my reason for intervening on a hostile and critical site. I defended my doubts here and there. Others are able to judge if I did so successfully. I don't link to such sites for legal reasons. But they are not hard to find.

But an important secondary discussion arose out of my statement some months ago that our political class were incapable of acting effectively against illegal drugs, one of the major causes of crime in our society. I said "So many of our leaders now are unrepentant illegal drug-takers themselves that they shouldn't be trusted near the making of laws."

This was misrepresented as 'most of our elected leaders are "unrepentant illegal drug-takers" ', wholly changing its meaning and import, and derided on the basis that , had I said what I was misquoted as saying, I would have said something stupid. Which I would have, had I said it. But I hadn't.

Now, since the site's host has rightly and honourably apologised for this severe and illegitimate distortion, my prejudiced critics ( who would in general oppose anything I favoured, and favour anything I opposed) have begun to say that the undoctored statement is itself absurd. Is it, though?

Let me waft readers back, past days, weeks, months and years gone by - to the sleepy seaside town of Bournemouth in October 2000. William Hague is leader of the Tory Party, slowly climbing out of the ditch after the car-crash of 1997. Ann Widdecombe, one of the party's few recognisable national figures, then Shadow Home Secretary, has just made a fierce speech calling for the laws against drugs (especially cannabis) to be properly enforced, which you might have thought was a Conservative policy.

Now read on, the account of what happened written by my former colleague Jonathan Oliver, then political reporter for the Mail on Sunday:

'It was the small hours of Thursday morning and the bar of the Swallow Highcliff hotel was heaving. MPs and activists queued six deep to buy beer at £2.80 a pint and wine at £4 a glass to toast the final night of the Tory conference.

Some noisily voiced their views on the leader's upcoming speech which would bring the Bournemouth conference to a close while others sealed plans to travel home together later. But for one or two the week's business was far from over.

A senior party aide had a message to impart.

Placing his glass of champagne on the bar, he leaned forward and quietly explained how half the Shadow Cabinet were furious at the controversial plan by Shadow Home Secretary Ann Widdecombe to target cannabis smokers.

'Ask some of them whether they smoked dope when they were younger. I promise you will receive some fascinating responses,' he murmured before disappearing into the crowd.

Later that morning, The Mail on Sunday, acting on his suggestion, set about contacting William Hague's frontbench team.

The result was astonishing. Over the next 36 hours there followed the most extraordinary series of revelations, which could tear the Tory Party apart and have major implications for Britain's drugs policies.

Shadow Foreign Secretary Francis Maude is the bluest of the present Tory bloodline. A merchant banker, he is the son of former Minister Angus Maude, one of Margaret Thatcher's closest confidantes. The use of drugs, even marijuana, would be intolerable in such a dynasty, and such matters would have been a taboo subject for public discussion. Until now.

Yet Maude, 47, although initially uneasy with the question, told The Mail on Sunday that he had taken the drug: 'I suspect like many people of my generation, it was quite hard to go through Cambridge University in the Seventies without doing it a few times. It was an extremely long time ago.' The MP for Horsham said he stopped smoking cannabis before he entered Tory politics as a Westminster City councillor at the age of 25.

Maude studied history at Corpus Christi College between 1972 and 1976 and said his days there were 'a lot of fun'. His Cambridge contemporaries included fellow Shadow Cabinet members Michael Portillo and Archie Norman.

Maude served as a Treasury Minister in the last Tory government and would be a front-runner for the leadership if Hague quit.

His admission was hardly one of wild drug abuse. Yet within the hierarchy of the Tory Party, even today, it is something of a bombshell. Such a statement could be a disaster in a party whose membership is predominantly over 60 and who find drug use anathema.

It is not the first time Maude's personal circumstances have had a profound effect on his politics. Two years ago his gay brother Charles died of AIDS, prompting the father of five to call for more tolerance for homosexuals.

Shadow Transport Minister Bernard Jenkin was the next to come clean. Jenkin, 41, is another member of a long-established political clan: his father Patrick, now Lord Jenkin, was Environment Secretary under Margaret Thatcher.

'I really only used cannabis a couple of times,' said Jenkin. 'I would not want to give the impression I was doing it all the time. It was in my early 20s. It was miles before politics. I was working at the Ford Motor Company in Essex at their Brentwood head office.

'If the enforcement policy had been more rigorous maybe the temptation would not have come my way. I have children and I don't want them to try it.' Coincidentally, Mr Jenkin also went to Corpus Christi, Cambridge, but he insists he never took drugs while he was a student.

Within hours other members of the Shadow Cabinet were opening up about their drug experiences. They denied colluding, but as they talked more freely to The Mail on Sunday it became obvious that this was more than just a chance to get a bit of youthful excess out in the open.

Personal reputations and political career prospects were being laid on the line as well as possible opprobrium from the party faithful, friends and even family.

But such was the feeling of deep antagonism against 53-year-old Widdecombe and the way she had proselytised on the need to clamp down on those who use cannabis that these senior party members were willing to admit that they had broken the law - albeit some three decades ago.

The rebels, while giving their individual stories of cannabis use, were singing from the same song sheet. All are Right-wing monetarists to a man with no-nonsense views on the need for low taxation and prudent spending, but libertarians on issues effecting individual conduct.

Widdecombe's plan to fine cannabis users infuriated the group who saw it as dangerously undermining the party's attempts to move towards a softer stance on social issues needed to win back support among younger voters.

Their decision to speak out now is a way of mocking a woman they consider out of touch. More seriously it is a challenge by a third of the Shadow Cabinet to Mr Hague, forcing him to choose between them or Widdecombe who they now want removed from the law and order job.

The third Shadow Cabinet member to speak out on the issue was Archie Norman, 44, the Tory spokesman on the environment, transport and the regions.

He went to Charterhouse and said he took cannabis while a student at Cambridge, Harvard and the University of Minnesota in the United States.

Norman, who made his name as chief of the Asda supermarket chain, said: 'I don't regret having done it. It didn't do much for me. I turned to drink instead.

I was just a normal student like anyone else. It was fairly commonplace.' 'It doesn't worry me at all what people think. I think you expect human beings to explore and experiment. If you don't you haven't been young.' Peter Ainsworth, 43, the Shadow Culture Secretary, described how he tried cannabis and the chemical 'upper' amyl nitrate at Oxford University parties in the Seventies.

'There were lots of parties,' recalled Mr Ainsworth. 'I wasn't majorly involved in a set that was taking drugs heavily. But from time to time, actually very infrequently, these things would come round at a party. I didn't want to live my life without discovering what it was like.' He went on: 'It did nothing for me at all. It made me feel slightly sick. Someone once stuffed a handkerchief drenched in amyl nitrate in my face. I thought I was going to die.' But he said he had no regrets. 'The fact is that young people are going to experiment. But it is potentially dangerous. A great friend of mine died from drugs some years later.

It was one of those awful accidents.

I would advise everybody to steer well clear.' Social Security spokesman David Willetts, 44, nicknamed 'Two Brains' by his colleagues for his fearsome intellect, admitted trying marijuana. 'I was once offered cannabis at university,' he said. 'I had two puffs. I didn't like it and I have never had any experience of drugs since then.' Lord Strathclyde, 40, party leader in the Upper House, who is also a member of the shadow team, admitted to experimenting with cannabis. 'I tried it when I was at the University of East Anglia 20 years ago,' he said. 'I haven't done it for two decades.' Rising star Old Etonian Oliver Letwin, 44, a former Thatcher aide promoted to the Shadow Cabinet two weeks ago, said he had smoked pot - but only by accident.

'At Cambridge I was a very pretentious student,' he said. 'I grew a beard and took up a pipe. On one occasion some friends put some dope in a pipe I was smoking.

It had absolutely no effect on me at all. I don't inhale pipes or cigars. When I discovered I was extremely angry.' Of the 14 other Shadow Cabinet members, nine denied they had tried drugs, two were unavailable and three - Shadow Chancellor Michael Portillo, Shadow Agriculture Secretary Tim Yeo and Ulster spokesman Andrew Mackay - refused to answer.

'I think I have given enough information about my younger days. Don't you?' Portillo said.

Yeo said: 'It's very kind of you to ask, but I don't participate in Shadow Cabinet surveys because they rarely reflect well on those that participate.' Mackay said: 'I don't answer surveys.' The openness displayed by such senior political figures on their drug-taking pasts will shock some Tories. Traditionally they have boasted of being the party of law and order but these 'confessions' indicate the way social issues dominate today.

Hague seems to have brought most of the party together in opposing the euro for the immediate future. Now it is issues of behaviour and morality that are threatening to tear the it apart.

The Tory leader recently admitted to heavy drinking as a teenager but has denied taking drugs, while Portillo has talked about his homosexual experiences as a young man.

But the Shadow Cabinet's collective confession about their drugs past is far more political than either of these. The response to The Mail on Sunday's blunt questioning on cannabis goes against the norm. Ministers have been asked about personal drug use ever since President Clinton responded that he had 'smoked but did not inhale'. Labour's response is to decline to answer surveys with only Mo Mowlam, the outgoing Cabinet Minister, ever admitting taking cannabis.

The concerted anger at Widdecombe - an Oxford graduate - is also due to the view that she nearly wrecked the Tories' most successful conference for years while the Shadow Cabinet is miffed at not being consulted over the cannabis policy.

'If we were told about it, we could have pointed out the flaws straight away,' said one. 'It would never have seen the light of day.

We all know that the big problem is the hardcore addicts not the millions who have the occasional joint.' But behind the row lies a bungled attempt by Widdecombe to dominate the conference and undermine Portillo, her arch rival.

On Tuesday afternoon the Shadow Chancellor gave a barnstorming performance leaving Widdecombe furious. Portillo was set to dominate the headlines and eclipse her own speech the following day.

Drastic action was required.

Minutes after the Shadow Chancellor sat down, Widdecombe waddled into the cramped Press area and began briefing the drugs policy to selected journalists - to the consternation of Central Office spin doctors who had not been consulted.

But the next morning her strategy unravelled with alarming speed. The police immediately condemned her plan for fixed penalty fines for cannabis users.

Peter Williams, secretary of the Police Superintendents' Association, said: 'Our priority is not to punish people for possession but to divert them from drugs.' That afternoon Widdecombe returned to the Press room where, standing alone and surrounded by around 40 journalists, she struggled to defend her crumbling position to the delight of a small group of Portillistas.

As the sun set behind Bournemouth pier, Hague's plan to show the Tories as a united party fit for government was in tatters.

He now faces the biggest test of his leadership. He can hardly sack the seven members of his frontbench team who admitted taking drugs, immediately after the Tories promised to impose tougher penalties on drug users.

On the other hand how can he possibly order a U-turn? It would amount to personal humiliation for him and almost certainly provoke the resignation of Widdecombe.

This may well be what the seven drugs rebels want.'

That's the end of Jonathan's interesting, thorough, enterprising ( and widely followed) report. But it's not the end of the matter. Note not just what was said here, but also the manner in which it was said, the official encouragement of the reporter (such things are seldom revealed, though not unknown) and the remarkable willingness of MPs to discuss tricky questions.

Now, this is the most comprehensive survey of the kind ever done. But I think many of us can recall similar confessions, seldom particularly repentant, from many other politicians of (I think) all major parties in the years since. Though the MoS survey actually made the Labour Party (where I guess drug use among MPs is certainly no less than among the Tories) rather nervous of talking about the subject.

I'll see how many I can locate over the next few weeks. Not all of those quoted in this survey are wholly unrepentant. But some certainly are. The Prime Minister notably refuses to discuss his own past drug use (though as a member of the Commons Home Affairs Committee in 2002-3 he voted - though another Tory MP on the committee did not - for a highly radical report which bought all the arguments of the drugs liberalisers and called for the relaxation of the drug laws).

I certainly think it quite wrong to suggest that my use of the words 'so many' in this case was unfounded or absurd. I am, in fact, unrepentant.