Daily Mail: "Cameron backtracks on drugs downgrade"

"Conservative leadership contender David Cameron has backtracked on his call for ecstasy to be downgraded.  Mr Cameron said the clubbers' drug should be reclassified from class A to B in last night's TV debate with rival David Davis... But Mr Cameron's spokesman stressed this morning that the issue "is not on our agenda".  "It would not be a priority. Having a position on this is not a priority for an Opposition party," the spokesman said.  "He has simply made his position clear. He backs the select committee report.""

That quotation comes from this afternoon's Mail Online; the "select committee report" referred to is the one which Mr Cameron signed as a new MP.

Page 2 of tonight's London Evening Standard leads with a similar story.  Describing Mr Cameron's views on ecstasy as "controversial" it noted that a Cameron campaign spokesman said that they were not "official policy".  "If he became leader it would be a matter for the party to decide the policy," the spokesman continued.

What is known, however, is that David Davis takes a much tougher view on drugs like cannabis and ecstasy.   "Ecstasy destroys lives, that why parents are terrified," was the Shadow Home Secretary's view on last night's QT.

Both campaigns will be waiting anxiously for tomorrow's YouGov survey of party members for The Daily Telegraph.  A significant movement towards David Davis will give his campaign the momentum it has lacked since Blackpool.

Comments

[Daniel Vince-Archer]

You turn if you want to...

[eagle eyes]

I dont think the press have picked up on this.

But the chap in the audience who told Cameron he couldnt manage a bath outside his "stage managed" comfort zone works for David Davis - i've met him, he's called William something. So the guy who criticized DC for running too stage-managed a campaign was asking a planted question for Davis.

Oh the irony!

[Selsdon Man]

The question that needs to be answered is "does drug prohibition work?"

Today's drug barons are the modern equivalent of Al Capone who got very rich from supplying alcohol during the US's prohibition era.

[tory_leader]

Regardless of whether or not the drug war has been effective, I wonder how Tory members will react to this in the news on top of Cameron's performance last night.

[Puzzled]

Is Cameron in favour of downgrading ecstasy or not? Do we get any clues?

[Derek]

Selsdon, does prison work? Not if you believe that no one sent there should commit another offence. but you wouldn't abolish them, would you? The point is not that prohibition is 100% effective, but that it at least sends out the message that drugs are not condoned by the state. Legalisation would send out the opposite message and ruin far more young lives.

[Daniel Vince-Archer]

What was that the Cameronites were saying about making policies you couldn't stick to? If this had been Davis, we'd have already had an avalanche of attacks along the lines of 'Davis forced into policy U-turn' or 'Davis forced onto the back foot'.

[James Maskell]

This looks to me like he ballsed up and has swiftly found his reverse gear. I would have thought after the furore about him and drugs in the past, he would have made sure he was absolutely crystal clear about his views on drugs. Alas my naivity shines through...

There is a month to go, but Im starting to think...is it possible that the impossible might actually happen?

Just got my membership card today. Im off to see DD in Canterbury on Monday!

[Sam]

Yeah I mentioned this yesterday Eagle Eye but good spot!: the couldn't run a bath" quip was from William Aitken son of disgraced former Cabinet Minister Jonathan Aitkin. Not only does he work for Davis's campaign, but Davis is personal friends with his father and was guest at his wedding.

Was anyone else left feeling that the real loser in this televised debate was the Conservative Party itself. Could we possibly project a more divided image of ourselves between two extreme poles: Modernisers v. Traditionalists. How that repellant Labour Party must be lapping this up - Just imagine the fallout from a head to head debate between Brown & Blair.

This debate should have taken place privately for the benefit of Tory members not the entire electorate.

[ian]

The latest survey showed that cannabis use had gone down since it was decriminalised.

Ecstacy is used safely by 1-2million people in this country. Alcohol and tobacco abuse kill hundreds of people each week and yet people focus on a very few high profile deaths from ecstacy.

The reality is that ecstacy hasn't killed anyone. Dehydration or excessive water drinking has, but this killed 4 people in the great north run this year and noone is suggesting that running should be criminalised.

David Cameron is the first tory politician to say anything sensible on drugs and I and millions of other young people would support the conservatives with a leader like him.

[Mark Fulford]

Cameron stands by the original answer but says that it's not a priority. That's precisely the sort of thing that will happen in a free debate.

Should Cameron have answered "I'm not answering this because it's not a priorty"? Of course not.

[Mark Fulford]

the couldn't run a bath" quip was from William Aitken son of disgraced former Cabinet Minister Jonathan Aitkin. Not only does he work for Davis's campaign, but Davis is personal friends with his father and was guest at his wedding.

Almost unbelievable. Davis's smirk takes on a bit more meaning. What a nasty piece of work.

[Stephen Alley]

This campaign continues to intrigue:

Davis has clearly decided that the voters are party members, and his "core vote" policies, clearly appeal to the party membership.

Cameron having built up his momentum from the conference and the MP's voting, has decided to keep going in a policy-lite mould. He is right to reiterate that policies which relate to spending can not accurately be articulated 4 years in advance. Since he can't U-turn on this, Cameron is truly caught between a rock (being nice to DD) and a hard place (his own word).

I think Cameron's challenges is to:
Focus the party on electing a leader who can win floating voters, and not elect one whose focus is on "core" voters?

Talk of downgrading ecstasy is potentially suicidal. There is merit to Cameron's argument: millions use ecstasy, ecstasy is not as addictive, nor as harmful as many other class A drugs. However, there are many other discrepancies between legislation and what the Crown Prosecution Services choose to prosecute and talking about this now is sure fire way to turn off the party membership. (It almost fits into Portillo's 25% strategy.)

Davis' strategy of outlining policies will continue to bear fruit and he should stick with it until Cameron is finally forced to articulate on policy.

One thing I would recommend to Cameron, is to focus the debate on health care, firstly because this only indirectly impacts on spending, and because no one has thus far successfully articulated a "core vote" strategy for the health services.

[Eagle Eyes]

Sorry sam, didnt realise i was repeating you!

WHY hasnt this been in the national media!?

And surely DC must have known who was asking him the question, if he's the son of a well-known conservative?

It's so hypocritical of DD!

More should be being made of this, I'm incensed!

[James Maskell]

Whats the problem with him being there and making a point? I really cant see what this fuss is all about. He wasnt the only one coming out with quips like that.

[Eagle Eyes]

The problem is, he's on Davis' payroll - and he asked a nasty, vitriolic "question" that was bad for party unity if nothing else.

The problem is also that DD made much of the fact he was going to keep the debate clean, not going into drugs for example. This is incredibly hypocritical ! - he just farmed out the dirty tricks to his cronies in the audience.

This is a big deal, and the media should make more of it!

[Adrian Owens]

"If he became leader it would be a matter for the party to decide the policy," the spokesman continued.

But how does the party propose to set policy?

This is one area where I would like to hear both candidates explaining how they would change the current system.

While the policy-making system needs to reflect the fact that policy statements often have to be made quickly in a 24-hour news environment, the next step in showing that the party is learnig from past mistakes is to institute a genuine bottom-up system to generate policy ideas.

Not only will the involvement of grassroots members (and yes, why not grassroots supporters who are not members?) in a successo to the CPC/CPF lead to better policy formulation, but such a process will engender the ownership of the party's policies that are needed for activists to genunely sell our policies on the doorstep.

When challenged on the doorstep about some of our policies at the last election, I had 2 problems:

1. I had to hope that I'd kept up with the speed of policy announcement such was the torrent of policies annonced in the last few weeks in the run-up to the election or

2. I had to try not to disown policies in which I had had no input and often occasionally thought were entirely misplaced or immoral.

So, DC and DD how will you involve party members in policy formation?

"Modernisers v. Traditionalists"

Yes polarised between the traditionalist (as in, what is handed on") Cameron who wants to maintain the Blairite status quo and the modernising, more radical Davis who wants to set the people free. It is ironic that Mr Blair who destroyed the House of Lords shares the aristocratic desire to keep people in their place.

[Gillibrand]

"Modernisers v. Traditionalists"

Yes polarised between the traditionalist (as in, what is handed on") Cameron who wants to maintain the Blairite status quo and the modernising, more radical Davis who wants to set the people free. It is ironic that Mr Blair who destroyed the House of Lords shares the aristocratic desire to keep people in their place.

[loyal_tory]

Perhaps Paxman or David Davis at the hustings can ask David Cameron why he has detailed policies on climate change and ecstacy but not on tax and public services.

[James Maskell]

Its a no-brainer loyal_tory and Im sure we all guess the same thing. Its easy to come out in favour of saving the planet from climate change but its much harder to come up with tax or public service pilicies. Of course that shows Camerons flaw in not wishing to take risks. As Leader of the Opposition, you have to take risks. Does he have the cahunas to take the risk when he needs to? I suspect. Hell, Im risk averse, but then Im not going for Leader of the Opposition...

[James Maskell]

Missed out the ecstacy one. He knows how to come out on that issue because he was on the Home Affairs select Cmte. Its one of his good cards that he was involved in drugs policy that way. By the same token he doesnt want to talk about drugs because the question about him appears so a bit of a catch-22 there.

[James Hellyer]

"The problem is, he's on Davis' payroll"

Proof please.

[James Maskell]

Why is it that just because you are someone's son means you have to be the same as the father. We know Aitken's reputation (and Im sure we've all scoffed at the suggestions he had fully repented) but it doesnt mean that Aitkens son is the same. If I was anything like my father, I wouldnt be even close to a sniff of being involved in politics.

[Eagle Eyes]

Proof he's on Davis' pay roll : I've met him at a DD event, he's one of his aides.

Let me clarify - I am in no way suggesting anything regarding William Aitken and his father as you imply.

I have no problem with Jonathon Aitken whatsoever, nor William Aitken for that matter.

I do have a problem, however, with DD's hypocrisy when he plays holier-than-thou about not attacking DC over drugs on QT, but then gets one of his aides to mount an unkind and unconservative attack on him from the audience.

It was a dirty trick, whoever took part in it, and it is wholly undeserved on DC's part.