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It's certainly an interesting idea, trying to get the wider public involved in determining your party's manifesto:

Tories invite public to decide on policy

David Cameron, the Conservative Party leader, has pledged an unprecedented change in policy making by committing the party to giving the public a direct say in shaping the Tories' election manifesto.

Mr Cameron is to launch a policy debate: 'I want us to end the age of top-down 'we know best' politics'

The Conservatives are to launch the most extensive grassroots policy debate in British political history, called Stand up, Speak up - The Nation's Dispatch Box.

In a letter being posted to MPs, constituency chairmen and candidates this weekend, and which has been seen by The Daily Telegraph, Mr Cameron said that he was determined to mobilise public opinion before deciding which recommendations of the 18-month policy review he would use to fight the next election.

But I'm not entirely sure about "unprecedented" or indeed how wise. When Lib Dem policy papers go out to consultation it's usually a public process. Sure we probably don't market it as much as we could but in recent years that has involved web discussion boards and the like, in which I happen to know Tory members have participated.

But we haven't done it with our manifesto. We've done it with our policy work. Our manifesto discussions have been internal, and for very good reason - it's our party that would have to implement them. Our manifesto is our "shop window" which is what draws support or not as the case may be. This seems like the "car boot sale" of manifestos - there might be some great deals, but there's going to be a great deal of tat you won't want on your manletpiece. One way of ensuring you're not just doing "we know bet politics" is to ensure that there is engagement and healthy debate within the party and that the membership is sovereign when setting policy from which the party picks its manifesto.

Study after study shows that it is the "usual suspects" - something like one per cent of the population apparently - that engage fully in such things. Yes, we should always be looking for ways of increasing that proportion, but like Blair's "Big Conversation" I suspect that this will turn out to be a gesture, and worse, has the potential of increasing cynicism in political parties as people are disappointed you don't take their ideas.

Technorati Tags: conservatives, politics, tories

Dan Paskins takes me to task for moaning about Labour's tactics against me when they put out that "scurrilous" leaflet while others, including he says the Lib Dems, are doing just as negative things in their leaflets. I should treat it, he says, as an opportunity to debate those issues if I feel so strongly about them and accept that, in such a debate, I might win over some people, or at least their respect for making the case rather than whining.

He provides an example that, in our East Oxford wide tabloid, we ran an article asking whether Andrew Smith, Oxford East's constituency's New Labour MP, was the biggest hypocrite in town for his duplicitous stance on post office closures. He says that as an issue, that too was beyond the remit of the City Council and therefore, by one of my "rules" of discourse not something that should be mentioned in the context of those elections.

Set aside for the moment a leaflet I saw for Hinksey Park ward with a priceless (literally!) picture of Andrew, the Labour council candidate and A N Other hugging a pillar box pledging to keep Grandpont Post Office open. Even if they hadn't made it a campaign issue of their own, economic well-being is, according to their own government, part of the remit of any local authority. The other four districts in Oxfordshire have pledged to fight the closures and to support communities that are affected if they fail in that fight. Already considerable time and effort had gone in, not, it has to be said, much on the part of the city council, as much as by the various bodies that help social enterprises in the county, to keeping Iffley Village Shop and Post Office going after previous owners decided to stop running it. But clearly the campaign issue for Grandpont and Mr Smith's own actions in supporting the closures in parliament are at odds. They made it a campaign issue even if it wasn't. The person in the photos objecting to the closures voted in favour of them when he had the chance. That seems materially different from my case.

Then there's the question as to whether one should simply debate what is thrown at you to debate, or object to it. Well, I don't for one minute believe that putting out a leaflet on the last weekend of the campaign, distorting my views by selective quoting, is an invitation to a debate. After all, I know some Labour lackey had collected the quotes some weeks previously - I saw them trawling through my drug posts in the week commencing 7th April - if they wanted a debate, there would have been time. It was also notable that they did not put out the said leaflet in the part of the ward that might have been expected to be most interested in such a debate, in the halls of residence (though they didn't put anything round the halls of residence to be fair, in their apparent attempt to disenfranchise a quarter of their electorate by not engaging with them).  Yes, let's have such a debate. It is all too rare in this country to be able to have a reasoned debate about drugs policy. And stunts like this leaflet prove why.

Dan thinks my position is significantly different from that of my party. It is not. The party concluded that the current system of criminal enforcement was often if not always ineffectual and counter productive, failing to minimize harm and continuing to put users and others into the realms of the brutal organized crime networks supplying these substances. The main difference really between my position and the party position is the action I would take to remedy that - legalize, regulate and tax - whereas the party still feels that legalizing would not be an option even if it wanted to promote that as policy because of international obligations. As their leaflet nearly managed to get right, whilst not strictly legalizing, policy is that people whose only crime is possession of small amounts of any drugs for personal use will not be impriisoned, usually leading them to further addiction and contact with drugs.  Honest reporting of my opinion would of course also have said that I believe legalize, regulate and tax is the way to stop drugs getting into the hands of children, for example, which was obviously not even explained to former councillor Standingford when asking for her opinion who went off on one about protecting and educating children about drugs.

No, let's face it, I have a moral right in law to object to my work (this blog) being chopped up into sentences and rearranged out of context to create a derivative work whose sole intention, the evidence suggests, was to bring into question my character or reputation. I will argue that doing so (creating a derivative work against copyright rules) amounts to making a false statement of fact about an opponent (the same cannot be said of claiming, correctly, that Andrew Smith is "supporting post offices" in Labour leaflets, but voting for their closures in Hansard, or indeed in Dan's case that a vote for the Labour Party is support for the party that has recently taken us into several illegal wars). I say again, it is this sort of stunt that puts people off indulging in meaningful progressive debate about what is a significant issue in our world, even if not one that I have any power to do anything about whether elected to the city council or not.

I say supporters of prohibition are accessories to the gangland and drug related deaths that happen at home and abroad as a result of the criminal underworld in which the drugs trade operates with justification. Such moral turpitude on the part of those that would shirk that debate or use the difference of opinion for a little electoral gain is shameful, frankly. It's uncomfortable I'm sure, but call a spade a spade - Labour traded those deaths, past and future, for a few extra votes.

Was anyone perchance listening to Radio 4 at about quarter to seven this evening? There was a cover on of David Bowie's "Modern Love" which was fantastic but what caught my ear was that in introducing it, whoever the presenter was seemed to be saying that the band had some connection with Oxford Brookes University?

Did anyone hear any more of the intro (I was just hopping into the car and trying to get past the traffic heading to the local Papist burning ceremony so not really concentrating until the song itself caught my ear.

Now that Bloggers for Burma Day is past, my attention has been drawn to an article written thirty five years ago by Milton Friedman as then President Nixon was preparing to step up the "war on drugs". I think it appropriate today as President Brown prepares also to step up the "war on drugs" here at home (at the same time as the Czech Republic apparently starts the process of decriminalizing). You'll find it, which I reproduce in full below, along with lots of other useful documents and research hosted at the Schaffer Library of Drugs Policy:

Prohibition and Drugs

by Milton Friedman

From Newsweek, May 1, 1972

Stop Cannabis Prohibition
Originally uploaded by Professional Recreationalist

"The reign of tears is over. The slums will soon be only a memory. We will turn our prisons into factories and our jails into storehouses and com-cribs. Men will walk upright now, women will smile, and the children will laugh. Hell will be forever for rent."

That is how Billy Sunday, the noted evangelist and leading crusader against Demon Rum, greeted the onset of Prohibition in early 1920. We know now how tragically his hopes were doomed. New prisons and jails had to be built to house the criminals spawned by converting the drinking of spirits into a crime against the state. Prohibition undermined respect for the law, corrupted the minions of the law, created a decadent moral climate-but did not stop the consumption of alcohol.

Despite this tragic object lesson, we seem bent on repeating precisely the same mistake in the handling of drugs.

ETHICS AND EXPEDIENCY

On ethical grounds, do we have the right to use the machinery of government to prevent an individual from becoming an alcoholic or a drug addict? For children, almost everyone would answer at least a qualified yes. But for responsible adults, I, for one, Would answer no. Reason with the potential addict, yes. Tell him the consequences, yes. Pray for and with him, yes. But I believe that we have no right to use force, directly or indirectly, to prevent a fellow man from committing suicide, let alone from drinking alcohol or taking drugs.

I readily grant that the ethical issue is difficult and that men of goodwill may well disagree. Fortunately, we need not resolve the ethical issue to agree on policy. Prohibition is an attempted cure that makes matters worse-for both the addict and the rest of us. Hence, even if you regard present policy toward drugs as ethically justified, considerations of expediency make that policy most unwise.

Consider first the addict. Legalizing drugs might increase the number of addicts, but it is not clear that it would. Forbidden fruit is attractive, particularly to the young. More important, many drug addicts are deliberately made by pushers, who give likely prospects their first few doses free. It pays the pusher to do so because, once hooked, the addict is a captive customer. If drugs were legally available, any possible profit from such inhumane activity would disappear, since the addict could buy from the cheapest source.

Whatever happens to the number of addicts, the individual addict would clearly be far better off if drugs were legal. Today, drugs are both incredibly expensive and highly uncertain in quality. Addicts are driven to associate with criminals to get the drugs, become criminals themselves to finance the habit, and risk constant danger of death and disease.

Consider next the rest of us. Here the situation is crystal clear. The harm to us from the addiction of others arises almost wholly from the fact that drugs are illegal. A recent committee of the American Bar Association estimated that addicts commit one-third to one-half of all street crime in the U.S. Legalize drugs, and street crime would drop dramatically. Moreover, addicts and pushers are not the only ones corrupted. Immense sums are at stake. It is inevitable that some relatively low-paid police and other government officials-and some high-paid ones as well-will succumb to the temptation to pick up easy money.

LAW AND ORDER

Legalizing drugs would simultaneously reduce the amount of crime and raise the quality of law enforcement. Can you conceive of any other measure that would accomplish so much to promote law and order?

But, you may say, must we accept defeat? Why not simply end the drug traffic? That is where experience under Prohibition is most relevant. We cannot end the drug traffic. We may be able to cut off opium from Turkey but there are innumerable other places where the opium poppy grows. With French cooperation, we may be able to make Marseilles an unhealthy place to manufacture heroin but there are innumerable other places where the simple manufacturing operations involved can be carried out. So long as large sums of money are involved-and they are bound to be if drugs are illegal-it is literally hopeless to expect to end the traffic or even to reduce seriously its scope. In drugs, as in other areas, persuasion and example are likely to be far more effective than the use of force to shape others in our image.

As a side observation, the self same predictions as Milton makes here, 35 years ago, have been repeated just this week as Trading Standards officials fear the recent increase in the age at which youngsters can buy tobacco products will lead, as it will inevitably, to rogue traders flogging them fake fags over the school fence to get round the law. As the Schaffer library presents in a different article, the banning of something that is itself addictive is fraught with so many dangers as to make it nigh on impossible and certainly counter-productive. For those of us who already understand this, it's like watching a horrific train crash happening in slow motion knowing you are unable to prevent it.