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...or at least his party does, much more eloquently than any of the debates on the subject in either house of parliament:

In ConservativeHome's current poll of support amongst Tory members for their leader's choice of Shadow Cabinet Davis tops shadow cabinet league table again with Warsi at bottom.

Listed below are the rankings given by 1,274 Tory members for twenty-seven shadow cabinet ministers

1. David Davis: +79% | 88% satisfied, 9% dissatisfied
...
27. Sayeeda Warsi: -20% | 19% satisfied, 39% dissatisfied

Now, I am perfectly willing to concede the distinct possibility that she could have got +19% just for being anti-gay and -39% just for being of a race and gender that grassroots Tories do not consider as belonging to the governing classes, but it strikes me that this might come to be a case of "act in haste, repent at leisure". For in his haste to add a bit of colour to his shadow cabinet, Cameron neatly side-stepped the democratic process, as others have done certainly in the past just as egregiously, and made this woman a permanent member-for-life of the UK's legislature.

Actually, anyone who has seen her on television can see why Tory members would disapprove. She comes across as loud and boorish. If I were a Conservative member I'd probably cringe that she was representing my party on Question Time too. But that's not the point of this really. It's merely the fact that she is now there for life, or at least for as long as she deigns to grace the second chamber with her presence.

Indeed, it seems worse that this is someone who had attempted to get elected and had failed - she doesn't merely not have a mandate in common with all her fellow members of the second chamber, she went for one and the people, the core of our democracy in theory, didn't give her one. I've opined before that, as a rule, we should be even more wary of giving defeated ex-MPs a permanent consolation prize in the form of a peerage - let alone defeated candidates who have no prior experience of government. Those who step down voluntarily are somehow slightly less of a democratic outrage, but only just - as we shall see again when the former Deputy Prime Minister takes the ermine.

Still, it's done now. She has presumably had her letters patent and is now immovable, short of making anti-gay statements a thought crime which might land her in chokey and potentially disqualify her from sitting - though that would disqualify half the Tory benches in the Lords before her. Whether the grassroots Conservatives like it or not, she is likely to remain representing them for as long as she likes. Appointed peers are simply not the answer to the democratic deficit at the core of our legislature, and the sooner the Marquis of Minster Lovell finally gets round to finishing the job his government promised to do ten years ago the better.

...but if some of you arrived here because of a scurrilous Labour leaflet trying to discredit me because of my opinion on drugs issues, I wanted to settle your minds, I hope, with a synopsis of my position...

I am indeed in principle in favour of legalizing the vast majority of recreational drugs - for adults. Once legalized, their supply should be regulated, controlled through a licensing system, and taxed - which can help fund more treatment instead of prison cells. It is not the state's job to prevent adults in particular choosing to put something into their own body, or indeed, like dangerous sports and so on, what they do with their own body, if others are not harmed by that. Such laws actually remove the ability of the individual to be morally responsible for what they themselves do.

That is not to say that I want to see an increase in drugs use. Just that I believe that it is the current approach, the "war on drugs", that creates and sustains an illegal underground market that encourages people into multiple addictions and puts people into the hands of criminal suppliers who could not care less about the health of their customers so long as the money rolls in. It was recently suggested that the international trade in illicit narcotics is now the world's third largest trading sector, after I think it was financial services and energy. When heroin was legal in this country we had 18 registered addicts in the country - despite it being used in common, over the counter, drugs such as cough syrups. Make it illegal and we have seen the level of addition soar exponentially.

This is a long considered and pragmatic position, that agrees with many professionals in the fields both of law enforcement and drug treatment. Basically, that the current system, based on criminal enforcement, puts far more people in danger from drugs - it makes it easier to peddle to children, because the peddlars are unseen and uncontrolled (and sometimes children in the schoolyard themselves). It creates the core of gang and gun culture. It makes it harder to seek help when, in doing so, you have to out yourself as a criminal.

From Colombia to Croxteth, Afghanistan to the Aylesbury Estate, more people die because of the criminal networks engaged in the drugs trade than from the drugs themselves. Our politicians know this and continue to pursue the obviously failed "war on drugs" strategy because it is a populist one that's sure to get some people huffing and puffing and voting for them - don't fall for it - they are nothing short of accessories to murder! We need a mature debate about these immoral laws (any law that actually colludes in and creates the environment that breeds killings in our communities is an immoral law).

Nonetheless, as the desperate Labour party scaremongers know, my theoretical position on drugs is not one that has much relevance in the role of a city councillor, which is why we Lib Dems have decided not to rise to this astonishing personal attack, marring as it does what has been a reasonably well conducted campaign so far, and concentrate on the positive things we wish to do within the remit of the city council. I do not want any more people, and predominantly younger people as many of the victims of the current drugs system are, dying because of a populist and immoral set of laws that create more problems than they fix.

Now, perhaps you will stick around a bit and read up on my positive ideas for the pressing problems on which Oxford City Council could have an influence, such as affordable housing, and partnership working to bring a bit of business sense and community ownership into the management and development of community owned assets - in the process, I hope, giving more opportunities to people to do something fruitful with their lives and leisure time and not get onto drugs in the first place!

A: Before the government bans their legal substance of choice...

It was probably too good to be true, a "legal high" giving similar effects to ecstasy. And so it proves to be. The government, following orders from the bansturbators at Euro High Command (who says we still have control of our own domestic laws any longer?) is to move to ban BZP, Benzylpiperazine. According to the Guardian it is likely to become a class C substance by the end of the year:

Move to ban stimulant BZP | Science | The Guardian:

Owen Bowcott

The Guardian, Tuesday March 4 2008 Article history

BZP, a psychoactive stimulant promoted as a legal alternative to ecstasy and amphetamines, is to be banned in Britain. The government's advisory committee on the misuse of drugs will today begin the process of making it a controlled substance, following a recommendation from the European Union. It is likely to become a class C drug before the end of the year. BZP was once almost marketed as an antidepressant until its similarity to amphetamines was noted. It has been associated with vomiting, anxiety, insomnia, mood swings and seizures. It is already a controlled drug in eight EU countries. The EU action is binding and requires all EU member states to take legal action within a year. There has been no direct evidence of BZP causing death, although it has been linked to several fatalities in the UK.

I haven't tried it yet. I was going to a few weeks ago when I felt a bit down and thought it might be safer than trying to get a black market ecstasy tablet or some MDMA - it's really good for social situations that make me nervous and where I would not want to get drunk just to be able to strike up a conversation with strangers.

The whole sorry saga highlights just how idiotic the drugs laws are, and in particular the British classification system that Jacqui Smith has recently re-inforced with her deadly new death strategy. If BZP becomes a class C drug, while those it seeks to emulate are class B, amphetamines, and class A the even less harmful MDMA/ecstasy, where is the science behind that? Yup, you're right, there isn't any.

They may as well make sugar and chocolate class Bs on a whim if you ask me. Both are "linked" to several thousand fatalities each year in the UK. There's better science there it seems to me to justify that. But more than this, no doubt the search will go on for another substance, as yet uncontrolled, that will give similar effects, and the drugs laws will play catch up once again after legal businesses have built up a good trade in unadulterated doses because they can operate in country in clean, clinical lab factories and not kitchen top clandestine chemistry sets.

Maybe it's just the ethos of the new era in Britain under the Son of the Manse, and the Tories running hard to keep up with what is being seen as a neo-puritanism stalking the country, but there's been a lot of talk of new or increased restrictions on things like drugs and drink. Most recently of course we've had the outbursts by Chief Constable Peter Fahy of the Cheshire Constabulary wanting to  prevent "lesser adults", prospective alcohoodies, whose misfortune is merely to be older than we allow them to vote, to fight for Queen and country (or at least Tony Blair and George Bush), to serve in most elected offices, and to stand trial as adults, but less than the arbitrary age of twenty one from consuming the demon drink for fear that they all turn into murderous fiends.

I am a Libertarian and a Christian, and I want to share with you a favourite little passage from the good book that I believe sums up the libertarian response to such nonsense, and shows that it is inconsistent to see "things", substances and the like, as the culprits such that we should not be allowed to touch them. Temperance once meant not abstinence, forced or otherwise, but self-restraint, personal responsibility, and it's just plain wrong to blame the inanimate for what state people get into by abusing them.

From the Gospel of Mark, chapter 7:

18 And [Jesus] saith unto them, Are ye so without understanding also? Do ye not perceive, that whatsoever thing from without entereth into the man, it cannot defile him; 19 Because it entereth not into his heart, but into the belly, and goeth out into the draught, purging all meats? 20 And he said, That which cometh out of the man, that defileth the man. 21 For from within, out of the heart of men, proceed evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, murders, 22 Thefts, covetousness, wickedness, deceit, lasciviousness, an evil eye, blasphemy, pride, foolishness: 23 All these evil things come from within, and defile the man.

Christianity is not a po-faced, prohibitionary puritanism, but a way of life that emphasizes the virtue of true Temperance. I wish I could find it now, but I once read one of the works of the Cictercian monk and philosopher Thomas Merton in which in one passage he explains that things like alcohol and tobacco (he might feel differently today about the latter of course but let's suggest he might choose cannabis today) are both gifts and temptations. As a gift, alcohol can be enjoyed in moderation for its ability to lubricate social interactions, but as a temptation can be used to blot out one's other problems or to remove the inhibitions that prevent us doing harm to others or ourselves.

It's up to us all to learn, if we want to use such things, how to do so responsibly, to use them as gifts, and without endangering others or making complete fools of ourselves, abusing them as temptations. We cannot achieve that by banning them, or keeping them from young enquiring minds.