Since I never thought the cash for honours scandal would ever stand up in
court, I cannot be shocked at its death at the hands of the Crown
Prosecution Service. It would be hard to convince even a cynical London jury
of the venality of a few reported winks, murmurs and e-mails. Besides, they
would conclude, all politicians are corrupt.
That said, the stern Presbyterian, Gordon Brown, must have thought himself
victim of a ghastly practical joke last week. He opened his cabinet door and
found his colleagues lolling about like a bunch of tattooed fugitives in a
Marbella nightclub.
Party chairwoman, Harriet Harman, was passing round the sangria at her gang
getting off scot-free on loans for honours and even dumping on the fuzz into
the bargain. Across the table the home secretary, Jacqui Smith, and the
chancellor, Alistair Darling, were swapping spliff stories about their
youth. Smoking cannabis was excusable if you were “sensible but fun-loving”
and if you stressed that drugs were wrong and might cause brain damage, like
becoming a cabinet minister. At this point six other Brown honchos admitted
that they too belonged to Pothead Politicians Anonymous.
Meanwhile Tessa Jowell and her brewery friends were cock-a-hoop at news that
nocturnal Britain had stuck to alcohol rather than turned to Blair’s
namby-pamby “cafe culture”. Jowell had just pulled off another coup by
stinging the charity whingers a full £2 billion for her sensational £9
billion heist, a fortnight’s elite sports party for the International
Olympic Committee mob in 2012. In a dark corner, even gloomy Des Browne was
quietly cackling at his success in leaning on friends in high places to get
the Serious Fraud Office to turn a blind eye to his arms contract bribes to
rich Arabs.
What, Brown must have wondered with horror, would John Knox have said?
Having spent 15 years imbibing and implementing Thatcherite discipline as a
political programme, he would have to become a Thatcherite social
conservative as well. Labour had passed some 50 crime and punishment acts
and created 3,000 new criminal offences. Yet Brown’s cabinet felt there was
one rule for the political rich and another for mortals. It was laughing at
the law. For moral compass the British Establishment had found a fake Rolex.
Corruption in British government takes many forms, of which the sale of titles
is ubiquitous and relatively harmless. That members of the House of Lords
paid to get there is as old as the hills and no worse than getting there by
birth or by grovelling sycophancy. Of all the charges that might be laid
against Tony Blair’s regime, the sale of honours (unprovable in court) is
hardly the worst. The case was like getting Al Capone for tax evasion.
The police must have known their case was weak when they staged theatrical
dawn arrests and when so much was leaked to the press. They might not
prosecute, but they could at least humiliate and induce reform. But do not
trust these politicians. The case has served their real objective, to get
taxpayers to cough up what the now untitled rich will not. This will relieve
them of any need to raise money from those on whom they should rely, honest
party members.
The drug confessions have a deeper significance. They indicate hypocrisy on a
subject of urgent concern to all parents. Why should their children go to
jail when half the cabinet was admitting the same crime. Yet on Friday the
reaction at Westminster was one of humour. Drug taking is apparently okay if
you can get away with it. Drug taking is okay if you pretend you did not
enjoy it, or “experimented”, or affirm it to be “wrong” without quite saying
why. Lots of things are wrong without being crimes, which is perhaps why
nobody last week mentioned the word crime.
The coverage suggested a yawning moral hypocrisy. On the one hand are the
middle-class young who use drugs and “deal” to each other. On the other hand
are the working-class young who “traffick” and should go to jail for a very
long time. The children of the rich are decent-at-heart victims of the
wicked children of the poor, who are rightly cramming the jails.
If Jacqui Smith were merely a run-of-the-mill public figure, there might be no
objection to her using past drug use to display honesty and born-again moral
purpose. But she heads a department that has, for a quarter of a century,
ignored the disastrous consequences of its own policies and which, under
Blair, has delegated them entirely to the right-wing press. Only last month
it was announced that cuts in the prisons budget will fall chiefly on
education and the pathetic sums as yet spent on prison drug rehabilitation.
The supposed justification for state intrusion into what libertarians call
consensual behaviour is where it harms third parties and particularly the
young, whether it involves sex, drugs, gambling, alcohol or nicotine. For
these reasons, once draconian laws on sexual behaviour have been relaxed
over the years, except where they concern children. The same has gone for
off-course betting and casinos, despite justified pleas that they wreck the
families of addicted gamblers. Drink licensing laws have been relaxed even
in the face of evidence that alcohol is the major contributor to social
disorder in Britain. But tough laws on smoking have proved acceptable and
effective under pressure from offended third parties.
Britain’s Misuse of Drugs Act 1971 has proved neither acceptable nor
effective. It is responsible for over a third of the record prison
population and an ever cheaper drugs market that is untaxed and virtually
unregulated.
The most savage laws imaginable – hapless drug “mules” from Jamaica receiving
10-15year sentences for a first offence – have proved no deterrent. The
attempt to eradicate Afghan opium as a way of curbing heroin use in Britain
has proved predictably farcical.
There is no “get tough on drugs” policy in Britain, rather a stay-weak one
cloaked in hypocrisy. Paying his ritual obeisance to the Daily Mail, Brown
has even suggested that cannabis be upgraded from class C to class B, based
on research showing psychological damage done by the extra strength of the
home-grown plant. This research was available to the Home Office when David
Blunkett downgraded the classification in 2004. The recorded 20% fall in
cannabis use since then may be statistically unreliable, but it hardly
supports the case for upgrading.
When the gambling laws were liberalised and off-course betting permitted in
the 1960s, moral conservatives were appalled at such sin being sold in every
high street. Yet betting shops, regulated to prevent advertising and exclude
minors, wiped out a chunk of criminal activity. Likewise legalising drug
outlets and treatment centres is the only way to regulate and thus try to
limit drug use and reduce its penumbra of massive criminality.
Every country in Europe now has a drug problem, but all are debating how to
reduce narcotic harm through targeted regulation. Britain is in the Dark
Ages through ministerial terror of some newspapers. The price is paid by the
urban poor whose lives are dominated by the ubiquity and liquidity of the
drugs market and the violence of the gangs.
The British Crime Survey indicated last week that the public has lost faith in
claims of “falling crime”. This will continue as long as meaningless police
figures are allowed to pollute the valid British Crime Survey. But people
are not easily fooled. They can see what is happening in their communities
at night. They can see rising vandalism and read in their local paper of
growing knife and gun crime. They hear the crack houses and see drug dealers
operating in their streets. The only crime that is falling is that which
they prevent themselves, by protecting their own cars and houses.
The government has successfully tackled one antisocial narcotic, nicotine, but
has failed to tackle alcohol or drugs. What the law cannot suppress, it must
regulate. Alcohol has been subjected to underregulation, drugs to
overregulation. Somehow ministers must find a middle way on both.
The one honest outcome of last week’s ridiculous mass confessional would be a
cabinet with guts enough to raise the duty on liquor, license and regulate
drug sales and return some dignity and order to the streets of Britain.
simon.jenkins@sunday-times.co.uk
Would you be interested in speaking with some people who are victims of a mortgage fraud and their passports and driving licence used fraudulently?
There are several other people who have been put in a very bad position because they were duped into fraud which they had no knowledge of, and some have even attempted suicide because of the stress it has caused them.
Goldiee, Birmingham,
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Dear Sir
I am quite horrified by the news regarding the floods and cannot understand why other Countries have not come to our aid as we pour money into other Countries when they have a disaster.
Could not our Pop Stars stage a benefit for the flood victims of this Country? especially the children who have lost toys computers etc.
We look forward to hear your comments, and it would be great if you would publish our remarks - perhaps get feedback from readers of your paper.
Yours sincerely
Nancy Wrench and Ronald Dunbar, Burton Latimer Northants, England
Does this mean that somebody who used cannabis when they were at university should be disqualfied from becoming a politician? I'm not clear what Mr Jenkins wants politicians such as Jacqui Smith to do.
I suggest putting funds into research to find a harmless, non-addictive happiness drug that could supplant all the nasty chemicals that people ingest in the hope of escaping from themselves. You could call it 'Soma'.
Frank Upton, Frank Upton,
Whilst not wishing to be party political, when record floods are causing so much misery, where one asks are the Princes and Dukes who derive their titles from these areas? Surely a visit or a statement would help raise morale and help ease the misery of subjects who are suffering so unimaginably.
Frederick pyne, Ravara House, Ballygowan. , Co. Down. Northern Ireland
From my point of view as a reader in North Wales, the Origins skin care offer is another example of regional descrimination. There are no stores within a considerable radius of my home and no postal alternative is offered. Are we, isolated and rural communities, still considered as second class citizens?
Joanna Davidson, holyhead, wales
Simon says "Of all the charges that might be laid against Tony Blair’s regime, the sale of honours (unprovable in court) is hardly the worst." Just how does he know they were "unprovable in court"? Simply because he "never thought the cash for honours scandal would ever stand up in court" doesn't make it so. Could it be that pressure was applied to prevent the case/s from ever being heard? There's a lot to be said for the saying 'where there's smoke, there's fire." Perhaps Peter Wright's committee will dig yet deeper.
David Cunard, Los Angeles, USA
Corrupt politicians defraud and betray the British nation..the citizens and taxpayers whom they promised to serve.
They are nothing short of traitors.
They should look to the lessons of History... and beware the anger of the Nation.
Garth Strong, San Diego, USA/Cal.
The secret with disapproved activities, like gambling, drink, smoking, and drugs, is to permit them to the extent that a black market isn't viable, but control very strictly. People will drive to Blackpool sooner than deal with an illegal casino but if the only casino is in Blackpool, it's a nuisance to get there and the actual amount of gambling will be quite low. Similarly if we just allow heroin addicts to register with their GP and get a lethal dose if they want, there is no motive to get the money through muggings and prostitution.
An overly aggressive campaign against juvenile alcohol consumption will only serve to bring young people into contact with criminals. The anti-cigarette laws are at the limit of what smokers will tolerate. There's already a smuggling problem, soon we'll have an illegal pub problem, and you can't control alcohol sales in an illegal pub.
Malcolm McLean, Bradford, UK
"Corruption in British government takes many forms, of which the sale of titles is ubiquitous and relatively harmless."
Suppose Lord Levy had been Iranian and recruited many of his donors or "lenders" through an organization called Iranian Care. Would it be unfair to wonder whether he might have expected Iranian-friendly policies in return, rather than Britain-friendly policies? Or would there be no distinction between Iranian and British interests if Iranians said so?
Lesley Davies, Liverpool,
Anyone understands that you could not have a prosecution here with Blair being involved.
Clearly, all such politically-sensitive, high-level matters are either initiated or approved by the PM. It could not happen otherwise.
Equally clear, no one has any appetite to prosecute Blair.
Can you imagine Cherie in the court yawning for the cameras?
Let's put this down to his magnificent legacy.
A stupid, wasteful war. Blundering in the Middle East. Blundering in Europe. And selling honors, dishonoring his Queen.
Blair richly deserves his silly appointment in retirement as Middle East Something-or-other with no powers to do anything.
JOHN CHUCKMAN, Toronto, Canada
Bravo Simon - acutely observed and cogently argued.
But you must know in your heart that our political masters also know what you say is true. They won't act, either through cowardice or a cynicism so deeply entrenched that they don't really care that their gesture politics is so totally ineffectual
Peter Steadman, Gerrards Cross, UK
Well what do you expect from a Labour government? this is pretty much what Harold Wilson did, politics is about noses in the trough and at least with capatalist politics they are living their principles, with left wing politicians they are one thing in public and the opposite everywhere else. Name one fairly straight sociallist or communis or even liberal government?
Chris Edwards, Helston, Cornwall UK
Advocating "a cabinet with guts enough to raise the duty on liquor" is likely to cause many of the problems associated with gambling before the 1960s. And what Simon doesn't mention is the illegal trade in cigarettes that has been fuelled by increase in duty. Take a wander around any big city -- Holloway Road in London springs to mind -- and you'll see people selling cigarettes on the street. This didn't happen ten or 15 years ago. It happens now because the cost of cigarettes is so high as to create a healthy criminal market in its sale. Raising duty on alcohol is likely to develop a criminal market in alcohol. Effective regulation does not have to involve higher duty. It means enforcing existing laws where licensed premises are brought to account. And why not have a total ban on drink advertising? As Simon rightly points out legalising drugs is the way to tackle the criminal problem with its distribution. The 1971 Act produced the criminal activity associated with the sale of drugs. Legalise, licence and properly regulate premises selling tobacco, drugs and alcohol. The costly (in policing terms) criminal market will evaporate and we can concentrate on the social and health problems associated with substance abuse with better education and treatment.
Linus, London, UK
One may be surprised that any apparent moral hypocrisy had not extended to making the previous lowering of classification from B to C in 2004 of the substance concerned retrospective, which could have had the appearance of absolving those who admitted previous transgression in a way that non-inhaled experimentation without repetitive monetary transactions could not.
Had that happened, (using a legislative technique which undermines previous compliance by deeming it unlawful by backdating the law) reversing such a classification shift as now proposed might have added further legislative complexity, a path already well-trodden by a Department well committed to non-simple solutions.
At least all is grist to the mill of looking busy, even if the need for that may sometimes be questionable.
dr venables preller, Warminster, UK
The excuse for reversing the decision to re-reclassify cannabis given by many of the Brownites who confessed to having used it in the past, is that new strains now being sold are much stronger and more likely to induce psychosis. They didn't, of course, provide any evidence to back this up, or even launch one of their beloved "reviews" to find out the facts and inform their supposedly "evidence based" policies. But even if you take their annecdotal claims at face value, the emergence of stronger strains is an argument for legalising cannabis. Partly this is because the newer strains apparently merely reflect the fact that criminals find those varieties easier to grow in the UK now that imports from abroad are less practical. But more because legal cannabis could be quality controlled to ensure that only the supposedly weaker strains were sold. That, though, wouldn't suit such politicians, who seem to feel much more comfortable being "tough" on drugs rather than logical about them.
Angus, London, UK
For quite some years, Spain has allowed the possessions of small quantities of certain drugs, for personal use but ' dealing ' is still illegal. I haven't yet seen how this has helped to keep people off drugs. The more they have, the more they want. It does of course, cut down the record of recorded drug offences which helps the crime figures. I hope the UK does not fall into the same trap.. Possession, of any amounts, must remain illegal To legalise and regulate outlets, would be a very slippery slope indeed. Fear of detection and punishment is the only real deterrant.
JohnB, Malaga, Spain
There's an interesting convergence between the liberal and the libertarian going on in the UK at the moment over drugs policy. Mr Jenkins seems to be a pragmatist in the middle, he doesn't really know what he's talking about (he reads like a boozer not a toker or snorter), but he knows something has to change.
The regulation of the drugs market is easy. The dangerous drugs should be sold as a prescription only medicine. Cannabis should be sold like tobacco when commercial, and the huge non-commercial cannabis sector just left to get on with it, like any other kind of gardening.
Meanwhile there is a huge drug silent drug problem in this country, and that is benzodiazapine and anti-depressant dependency. Not very exciting, eh?
Mr Brown has the opportunity to stop posturing about the "drug menace" and start problem solving. Let us hope he has the moral courage to provide leadership on this issue.
Tom Donald, Dumfries, Scotland
The other side of the coin is legal and prescribed drugs, the mecca of the pharmaceutical empire that cater the needs of the rich along with the double standard that use of illict drugs is also permissible by the same class as a social experiment .
No doubt alcohol and it's use is worst then marijuana, but the bottom line is that the rich also control its production and not going to cut their own throat by limiting or its flow. After all, profits are more important then anything else and uncaring society expenable.
The bigger question is that of inequality and the Brit along with all others they support for the so called moral hypocrisy is a traditional status quo not likely to change. Perhaps, the only answer is to legalize marijuana, where its distribution can be controlled and it can be taxed. For the rest, education for the proper use of alcohol should start at home followed by social and technical education at school.
Mohinder L. Jerath, Ph.D. Toxciologist, Atlanta, USA, Georgia
Simon Jenkins has a deep grasp of the problems besetting Great Britain, from government down to the lowest have-not.
It is with dismay that I see his only remedy is to tax!
Gordon Brown will love him. Tax all social drinkers in order to abolish petty crime by louche youths. Probably under 5% of total drinkers.
Less a polemicist more a shrieking abstinence queen,
Minnie Ovens, Los Angeles, Ca,USA
"But people are not easily fooled. They can see what is happening in their communities at night. They can see rising vandalism and read in their local paper of growing knife and gun crime. They hear the crack houses and see drug dealers operating in their streets. The only crime that is falling is that which they prevent themselves, by protecting their own cars and houses."
Is this the same Simon Jenkins who was writing not a very long time ago that the public were mistaken to believe that crime was rising, that real rates of crime were no different in the 50's from today, that we were all worrying over nothing?
What happened, Simon? Has the rising level of crime finally reached your own neck?
Steve, Sutton,
The ministers who confessed last week, admitted to the criminal offence of smoking cannabis at a time when it was a class B drug criminal offence.
No procedure for a police caution for this offence existed then. Confessing does not remove guilt in the eyes of the law.
As self confesssed law breakers, how can these people hold posts in Government?
Bill Bird, Wallasey, Wirral
it is indisputable that most street crime is related to excess alcohol consumption.
The nightly death toll caused by drunken driving, domestic violence and other scourges can be laid at the same door.
All of us know, or know of, someone who becomes psychotic aggressive and dangerous under the influence of this ubiquitous drug.
We -and the users - need to be protected from its extreme effects.
Anyone convicted of an alcohol related offence should be banned from buying, possessing or consuming any alcoholic product.
The penalty for breaking such a ban to be custodial.
Difficult to enforce? No more so than a driving ban.
We'd be doing a lot of families a big favour too.
Vince Meegan, Brighton, UK
THERE IS HOPE FOR BRITAIN!
Congratulations to Simon Jenkins! He is ONE man who, in this age of shilly-shally double talk, is not afraid to tell it like it is!
There has been something of a decline in British pride, confidence and social quality ("social quality" covers several "conditions") over the last decade or so that may or may not be most apparent to expatriate
Britons. We see it in the subjects that Mr. Jenkins has addressed above....in the rise of teenage pregnancies, the problems at the BBC, etc., etc.
These too shall pass! The question is: How...and When?
From somewhere...a Strong Angry Leader shall emerge! The question is...Who? Is Gordon Brown "The Man"?
I feel a lot better after reading this article.
There IS hope for Britain.
Garth Rex, Glendle Heights, USA
An overwhelming aspect of the Blair years is Gresham's Law the debasing or degrading of just about everything whether the capacity of our military, our NHS, our CivilService, our academic examinations or the devaluationof the value of money and a peerage.
The bear faced rapacious gathering of Party funds and the pumping out of peerages must lie alongside the Lloyd George period regardless of the lack of the legal offer and acceptance; indeed any prospective peer might have refused so as not to be suspected the obvious Nu-Lab funding; and Yates of the Yard aware that the chances of a conviction less than from rape allegation nevertheless was assiduous in his investigation- no stone unturned.
And who has yet to explain why a loan and not a donation, Levy in a Civil Court?
One wonders if the MoH have conduced a cost risk assessment on the latent cost of drug addiction when as now (a) criminalised, (b) taxed and legal and (c) unregulated- with higher OD death rates?
DM, Eastbourne,
This is a charming rant, but like so many rants, it promises much and delivers little. How, precisely, do you propose to regulate alcohol? Unless draconian penalties follow, landlords will continue to serve drunken citizens, and if they refuse, the off-licences will fill the gap - assuming that our drunks have not already stashed liquor at home. Or should we tax alcohol to the hilt? What government can afford to risk doing so - and even then, it will still be readily available, and relatively cheap. The only scheme that might working would be biometric drinking cards, with alcohol only available in limited quantities per citizen. Can you sell this to the public? I doubt it. As for regulating drugs - do you assume that they can be regulated - and if so, on what evidence? Will you make all drugs available at government outlets? Or shall we have illegal drugs banned - and so perpetuate the black market in them, with the consequent crime and abuses? What can you offer as policy?
Nick, London, UK