Pubdate: Sat, 17 Feb 2007
Source: Independent on Sunday (UK)
Copyright: Independent Newspapers (UK) Ltd.
Contact:  http://www.independent.co.uk/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/208
Author: Cole Moreton

CANNABIS, COCAINE AND THE COURT OF CAMERON

So he smoked cannabis at school. But has the Conservative leader ever 
taken class A drugs? Cole Moreton tells the inside story of how his 
friends have protected him from the question - and reveals why it is 
unlikely to go away

The question they dreaded in the court of David Cameron was looming. 
If asked, it could scupper the young Tory's chances of leading his 
party - and maybe even end his political career: "Have you ever taken 
class A drugs?"

His leadership rival David Davis gave a straight "no" when asked at 
the hustings in Westminster in 2005. Kenneth Clarke raised the stakes 
by adding, unprompted: "If it's of interest to you, I have not taken cocaine."

His answer was a nod to rumours sweeping the House of Commons that Mr 
Cameron, the new darling of Tory modernisers, had snorted the drug 
while working in the media hothouse of Carlton Television - and 
possibly even as a special adviser at the Home Office. Next up to 
face the rightwing '92 Group of backbenchers that afternoon in 
October was Mr Cameron himself. There seemed no hope of avoiding a 
statement on drugs that could haunt him for ever.

But the question was never asked. Not for the first time - or the 
last - Mr Cameron had been protected from answering enquiries about 
his past. The full story of how he was spared that scrutiny, told for 
the first time today, emerges as the pressure grows for him to come 
clean about his involvement with drugs.

The question has not gone away - and the possibility of it being 
deflected for ever by the tight circle of friends around him is 
diminishing fast. The fact that he smoked cannabis as a 15-year-old, 
revealed in this newspaper last Sunday, has led to renewed demands 
that the Tory leader give a full account of which illegal substances 
he has used and when.

"David Cameron says law-makers must not be lawbreakers - but a 
special adviser to the Home Secretary makes more drug laws than most 
MPs," Lord Oakeshott said yesterday. The Liberal Democrat peer was 
special adviser to Roy Jenkins when he was Home Secretary. "Cameron 
must just tell us when he stopped taking illegal drugs, not hide 
behind his shifty soundbite."

His remarks follow those of Kitty Usher, a ministerial aide to 
Margaret Hodge, who broke the Government's silence on the subject 
last week: "I suspect the real reason he is not commenting is because 
he has refused to deny much more serious allegations about hard drug 
use and doesn't want to come clean about that."

So far Mr Cameron has stuck firmly to his strategy of refusing to 
answer questions about a "private past" before he became an MP in 
2001, although it is unclear whether he means this to include his 
earlier time as an adviser. Such stonewalling may keep reporters at 
bay, but his own Tory MP colleagues are a very different matter.

The plot to confront Mr Cameron with a direct question about cocaine 
was hatched at a meeting of David Davis's campaign team on the 
morning of 12 October 2005. With his own bid for the leadership 
flagging, Mr Davis knew the issue of drugs was his best hope of 
getting back on equal terms with the new front-runner.

Among the Davis supporters who gathered that day in the House was the 
newly elected MP Mark Pritchard. Just who came up with the idea of 
ambushing Mr Cameron at the '92 Group is not known; one person 
present suggests a "corporate view" was taken. In any case, it was Mr 
Pritchard who put the class A question that afternoon.

But Mr Cameron had been warned in advance of what he might expect, by 
another Davis supporter, David Ruffley. A special adviser in the John 
Major government at the same time as Mr Cameron, he was appalled at 
what he considered a "dirty trick".

Mr Ruffley secretly promised a leading lieutenant in the Cameron camp 
that he would try to foil the plot. Quite what happened next is a 
matter of dispute. Witnesses at the time saw Mr Ruffley and Mr 
Pritchard engaged in heated debate in a corridor near where the 
hustings were taking place, but the latter denies absolutely that he 
was "leant on".

What is not in dispute is that Mr Cameron was not asked directly 
before his peers whether he ever taken any class A substances. A 
softer question on drugs was asked by another MP, which would have 
made it very clear that a follow-up was not just a routine enquiry. 
But Mr Pritchard was silent.

There was also silence about the Eton story until it was revealed by 
Independent on Sunday writers Francis Elliott and James Hanning. 
Their book suggests that Mr Cameron continued smoking cannabis at 
Oxford, albeit infrequently and in moderate quantities, after being 
confronted by his headmaster.

Despite distractions he got a first in politics, philosophy and 
economics at Oxford and joined the Conservative Research Department, 
eventually working in the Treasury and the Home Office. If he did 
take cocaine or any other class A drug during this early stage of his 
career he has been remarkably well-served by any fellow users. As 
public affairs manager for Carlton Television, a job for which he was 
headhunted in 1994, he might have been exposed to drug-taking 
individuals. But Mr Cameron either abstained or was circumspect with 
whom he indulged, write Elliott and Hanning. The future Tory leader 
stuck to lager at TV industry gatherings where "cocaine use is hardly unknown".

His private world would seem largely immune to the charms of tabloid 
cheque-books, given that his schoolboy friends in the exclusive 
Bullingdon club went on to become bankers, hedge-fund managers and 
pillars of the Establishment. Not the sorts to spill the beans for money.

He is better off, therefore, than the shadow Chancellor George 
Osborne, whose social circle as a young man was much wider. His 
friendship with a woman he knew in 1993 as Natalie Rowe came back to 
haunt him in October 2005 when the former prostitute alleged he had 
taken cocaine with her. Mr Osborne denied the drug claims, but had to 
admit he had known Ms Rowe. It was precisely the sort of "kiss 'n' 
tell" that Mr Cameron's upper-class set would never dream of.

But as his profile grows there are now some places where not even 
moneyed or influential friends can help him - such as the set of 
Channel 4 News. It was here in October 2005, just after the hustings, 
that presenter Alex Thomson asked the question MPs had avoided. After 
rehearsing Mr Cameron's usual stance, Thomson said: "If I asked you 
if you'd snorted cocaine as an MP, you'd therefore say 'No' wouldn't 
you?" Mr Cameron replied: "That's right, but please, I mean, I think 
we've dealt with this issue ..."

To which the presenter, showing more persistence than a roomful of 
backbenchers, said, "So that's 'No?'" Cameron said: "I've absolutely 
answered your question." Thomson said: "Say no." And Cameron said: 
"I've just said no."

A C4 insider said yesterday that there was still ill-feeling in the 
Tory leader's camp towards the programme, but described the MP as "a 
bad loser". Mr Cameron may consider such interrogation impolite or 
inappropriate, but if he doesn't confront it soon there is no chance 
of the question going away.
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MAP posted-by: Elaine