Polls Say Dave's Dope Days Don't Matter
Populus has done some fieldwork asking about Cameron and cannabis in response to him admitting spliffing his way through Eton.
Anthony Wells reports
81% of people said it didn’t matter that Cameron had taken cannabis at university and there was even higher support for Cameron’s contention that MPs shouldn’t be expected to answer such questions: 85% said that Cameron should not be expected “to answer detailed questions about whether he tried drugs in his youth because all politicians are entitled to have made mistakes when they were growing up”.With the Daily Mail and the Mirror working overtime in the search for "Cocaine Conservatives" headlines, Guido wonders will it matter? Will anyone be surprised? Speaking as a metrosexual, metropolitan liberal, Guido thinks not. Who exactly would be genuinely outraged or surprised if it was discovered that twenty years ago he was snorting coke off Oxford maiden's thighs? Mirror headline writers? Paul Dacre? It is not as if the staff of those two publications are complete strangers to a Friday night pick-me-up. Well, maybe not Melanie Phillips.
55 comments:
Who exactly would be genuinely outraged or surprised if it was discovered that twenty years ago he was snorting coke off Oxford maiden's thighs?
Very few, no doubt. Certainly fewer than those who would be outraged if it happened in the late 'nineties - the thighs of Carlton maidens etc, etc.
In New Britain there are bigger worries than whether Dave smoked some weed or snorted some charlie as a young man.
When and where did he admit it-details please.
Which Oxford maiden was that then, Guido?
Er... Don't actually think DC has admitted anything. Just in case Messrs Sue, Grabbit & Runne come to call on Guido...
DC is in permanent 'we are all entitled to a private past' mode, which seems to be working pretty well.
DC admitted it at the time when he was 15.
Cannabis to ease the pain fagging is one thing.The Oxford and after ocki cockey may be slightly different as far as those unimportant Con. members are concerned.Can't wait to see the Con drugs policy---or indeed any policy.
Guido, its not just you urban metrosexuals who don't have a problem with it either - out in the sticks we find it a lot more acceptable than mrs blair not being able to tollerate a weekend in the West Country after foot and mouth, or that wanker howells, since imortalised in song, for his 'my idea of hell' gaffe.
ps. was this the caption competition ?
Nothing like a good snort out in the sticks before a spot of hard canvassing?
"I thought the tree logo was too fuzzy."
In the spirit of Backwoodsmans ps
Dave showing he really has turned over a leaf?
Having a spliff is showing his green credentials?
' . . 71% of people told Populus that “it would matter if it turned out that he had done so as an adult, after he started work”.
Equally, while people don’t seem to mind about cannabis, 64% of people said it would matter to them if Cameron had experimented with more serious drugs at university . . '
So he may yet find himself in hot water.
See the picture title is "dopey Cameron"
Think you'll find the electorate in general and the bulk of Tory membership will take a different view of Class A drugs!
I'm horrified at your lack of responsibility, Guido.
How can you possibly want a possible CRACK HEAD! running the Country for our little children?
I'm a forgiving person.
If dave has done a bit of weed, then fair enough BUT I don't condone it at all.
If a Cocaine story unfolds though, I will change my mind and withdraw my support for him.
I'm sorry, but I just couldn't wish this for my Country or my people.
I fear that the Conservative Party is being less than responsible or offering remorse, where remorse is due.
The Times had an article earlier in the week : Now Cameron is dogged by cocaine rumours.
I posted a comment there to the effect, so what if Cameron used cocaine. My comment wasn't published presumably because that wasn't what they wanted to hear.
Youthful Indiscretions - www.phillip-lee.com
It all depends how the 15% and 19% affect the margins. May not matter in Metroland, but there are some pretty tight margins out here in the urban sticks.
Yes, there'll be some ghastly old bastards out in the Tory membership who will huff on about the DC/drugs issue.
Just the same ghastly old bastards who are vile about homosexuals, who wouldn't have thought twice about getting pissed and feeling up junior female staff - oh, I'm describing you, aren't I, Guido?
As a voter I don't care what any MP did when younger.After all Churchill was a near alcoholic, and MacMillan's wife, etc etc etc...
I'd rather a past indisretion and current on track than incompetence , accounting fraud, misuse of titles and lies and spin...
everyone knows theres a coke photo floating around.
3 weeks before election day is the time.
madfish-some "indisretion"-some past!
Why did the photo not emerge at the same time as the George and prostitute photo?
Master Portillo came clean about taking one up the arse when he was sprog and look what it did to his career.
Far worse than the folly of a bit of youthful toking - the only thing in his past which would be unforgiveable would be if it emerged he had voted for NuLabour. But unlike many of his critics, I doubt he will have to live with the shame that disclosure would bring...
Over here we follow UK politics and football with much interest, much good betting too (ha ha). Now I see that your politicians like hashish I get export boys to send over couple of tonnes to Mr Cameron, as goodwill gesture. A big hello from Lashkar Gar to all of our friends in the UK.
Limpy your part right,the point being that Portaloo is not an old etonian.
afghan.Gesture appreciated but life will be a little down on monday when supplies run out.
Anonymous said..."everyone knows theres a coke photo floating around."
Oh come on, EVERYONE knows there's a photo of you giving Mother Teresa one up the farter floating around. Absolutely everyone.
Shit, did I just start a rumour with an anonymous post to a widely read blog? Does that mean I qualify for the 11 Downing Street 'Employee of the Month' award?
Anon:1.22 They were taken by different photographers?
Just remember what a 'private past' Mark Oaten had, and more importantly, what it did for him.
Dave isn't out of the woods yet.
No Sireeee!
Class 'A' will be here, come election time. You just wait and see.
Doom.
Well, that's right Mr Fawkes. I've indulged with a few of Fleet Street's finest... And when I kept nefarious company all those years ago, the High St Ken franchise was as coveted as that of the Barbican.
Cannabis at 15? No-one much cares.
Coke more recently would be a much bigger problem, if only because now Cameron has said how much he regrets his youthful indiscretions, any 'adult' drug taking would show him to be a hypocrite.
What happened to Libertarian Lefties?
Has Tony and Gordon had them all secretly locked up somewhere. Have they ALL joined the Conservative Party. Or do they only come out during Conservative governments?
Seems nowdays only piss heads care about what other drug users do. Its there way of excusing all those nights they slashed in the fireplace. Or why they ended up shagging that ugly bitch, later to be wife.
As long as Cameron does not turn out to be a socialist, he can fuck his own dog for all I care. Given that the dog freely gave its consent that is.
Its not rocket science.
In the light of some of the cloud cuckoo land guff that emanates from the Palace of Westiminster I'm beginning to suspect that they are all stoned in there all the time anyway. Or if they aren't then perhaps they should be!
The child and the man are not the same thing.
The question is: has he taken drugs as a mature adult?
If he has then that will be the end of his career, and rightly so.
Let me share my experience as a 17-year old junky. I bought a spliff from a chap in the park near my school, egged on by my friends. It did nothing for me at all. Subsequent experience as a 23-year old taught me there was nothing more intoxicating in it than balkan sobranie (smart pipe tobacco, for the uninitiated). Consider the prospect, fellow bloggers, that young DC thought he took "drugs", but actually never did! (BTW, there is a strong body of opinion that the coke story is pure astroturf / journalistic wishful thinking. If that photo ever shows up, my bet is that DC will be unrecognisable in it.)
Guido, surely you are not describing yourself as metrosexual and liberal ?
Do you moisturise ? Shave your legs ?
Belong to Liberty ? Amnesty ?
Thought not..
I very much doubt whether you are 'metropolitan' either.
You knew that someone was going to go after Davey boy for his behaviour in university. What is just pathetic is the fact they don't realise the general public are for more worried about his lack of policies that a bit of experimentation at Oxford.
I think some people are mising the point. A politician - like Dave the rave - cannot say that the actions of a fifteeen year-old do not matter in later life and at the same time insist that the fifteen year-old goes to school. The two positions are inconsistent.
Kevin Maguire calls Cameron "Druggie Dave", surely a libellous comment if there is one?
Or he has hayfever.
The victory of capitalism and the failure of liberty.
At this rate in ten years time Britain is going to be in a even more brutaly competitive free market world. While only a very small amount of its people will be free enough to compeat in it or benifit from it.
It did not have to be this way.
However you the British people voted for your prison bed, so now you can do plenty more sleeping in it.
Like him or not David Cameron is this nations only hope. He has the weight of over a thousand years of history riding on his back. While the media and the BBC snap at his ass.
The speed at which the media will change its state loving tune when Cameron takes over, will leave any sleeping Tories gob smacked.
Its a job I would not want for all the gravy on the gravy train, plus extra.
Please give the man a chance, we can always throw bad eggs at him while we are on the way to the airport, later.
If taking drugs 24/7 is the only way Cameron can still believe this country can be saved and what is more is worth saving. Then he can carry on taking all the drugs he neads.
I would forgive him if he had taken slightly more mind-expanding drugs than the Colombian marching powder. Cocaine is for wankers.
People in Scotland are more concerned about another kind of dope.
I wish the thousands of mediacl users of cannabis could get the same level of privacy young Caeron is demanding. Public shools are all the same, if the don't take it up the nose they take it somewhere else, tut tut.
But because its Dave, our only alternative Tony clone, we'll forgive him. Its so sordid it hurts. nevermind
It does matter if he wasn't arrested for an arrestable offence because Mummy and Daddy paid the policeman off.
Ah, the irony of the finger-pointing hoodie being arrested for possession of cannabis.
The fact is that many politicians have indiscresions from their past. Provided they are not currently or recently indulging their proclivities (cf. Charles Kennedy), who cares?
I think that political correctness is only so useful. for instance, the cash for honours affair -- surely the true scandal would be if they were found not to be selling the honours -- I would have them immediately sacked for lack of initiative.
i care you fuckwit .what is it with you and your fucking ilk the mans a fucking druggy and he with you and your metropolitan mates help wants to run my country i dont fucking think so.
let DC do a lie detector test on the date of his last snort, smoke, inject, imbibe, absorb, lick of illegals and having shown this was at 15 at Eton be declared fit for government ... and not a raving fiend
Good idear as long as it was done by all politicians. If it was going to be done I think you will find that about 25% of them would all find they had a very urgent holiday to go on. One good thing is that at least for a mouth or two the only Lib/dem left in the house of commons would be Ming.
Hee hee. Good point Gary. However, in all seriousness MPs could make an assertion alongside their DMI and that would be tested. If they owned up to using illegal drugs throughout their PR/Marketing/Legal/TV/Journo etc etc career but to stopping as soon as selected as PPC then that assertyion is what would be tested. Cameron is leaving it all hanging. Unfortunately no-one believes that age 15 behind the bike sheds was his last brush with bush. And while he's getting away with it at the moment in this age of triangulation it matters what 8,000, 80,000 or at most 800,000 voters think far more than the other 40M.
I thought it was immature and stupid to brag about smoking dope?
Cameron is immature and stupid.
Figures...
A recent survey (held in my cage) has shown that 100% of those questioned couldn't care less whether or not anyone presently acting in the capacity of M.P. has been an inquisitive youth in their past. Those questioned were much more interested in the ability of those M.P.s to sort out the mess that this country is in.
Oh... and I've run out of carrot.
Post a Comment