I don’t know if it’s me, but the Cameron cannabis confession story looks very carefully structured. Young Dave’s being carried like a ming vase through a minefield, before the issue is finally put to bed and into a very deep sleep.
The story goes a long way to stress that he wasn’t a total drugs pig, which was never alleged. It also largely skirts around the fact that he was originally rumoured to be taking cocaine. And the following is so complicated I’m having trouble working out what it’s actually about:
Friends say that his refusal to answer the drugs question during the leadership campaign was motivated by fear that his school disciplinary record would be unearthed. It led to persistent suggestions that he had taken class "A" drugs, but Cameron believed it was more important not to be caught lying if the Eton incident came to light than to close down damaging but unsubstantiated speculation about harder drugs.
Well I suppose being gated at Eton would be a major problem for the electorate - on another planet. The two halves of the second sentence just don’t cohere. How would denying cocaine use involve him lying about smoking dope at school?
One thing that does come through from the piece is how many of his circle were major druggies and/or general excess fiends. They may well decide to stick by the Great Bland Hope of the right, but the issue may not be over yet.
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