PORTILLO SUPPORTS CANNABIS CAMPAIGN

Michael Portillo has electrified the Tory leadership contest by saying that
he believes a "strong enough case" has been made for legalising cannabis.

Only hours before MPs began voting in a ballot he is expected to top, the
shadow Chancellor told reporters that Conservatives had to be "open to new
thinking" and more in favour of "personal freedom" than Labour.

Mr Portillo made his comments, which go much further than his previous
insistence that he had an open mind on the issue, in an interview in Lady
Thatcher's former constituency of Finchley last night.

He said: "People are clearly debating this question about whether marijuana
should be legalised. I think a strong enough case has been made for
legalisation on the basis that marijuana is a drug that can be compared
with alcohol and tobacco - and on the basis that kids are buying these
things, and buying them from people who are involved in a very dangerous
drugs trade, simultaneously.

"We have to look at this and I would propose that the party sit down, take
the evidence and reach a conclusion. And I hope that we will be seen, in
doing that, as being a party that is open to new thinking."

Only last week on the BBC's Question Time, Mr Portillo repeatedly refused
to say whether he believed cannabis should be legalised, claiming only that
the issue was "finely balanced".

His comments in Finchley go much further - and carry the risk of being very
unpopular among Tory activists who will have the final vote on who succeeds
William Hague as party leader.

Mr Portillo's cannabis remarks muddied the waters around his candidacy at
the same time as he was facing claims that he failed to declare around
UKP20,000 from speaking engagements while he was employment secretary in
John Major's government in the mid-1990s.

He launched a strong fightback against the allegations, in The Guardian,
claiming they were a Left-wing "smear" designed to damage him as MPs began
voting on the leadership.

Mr Portillo admitted accepting the money for speaking to private dinners -
mostly arranged by businesses. However, he insisted the money had been paid
to his constituency association and that he had kept none of it.

The shadow Chancellor claims he complied fully with the Commons rules on
declaring such payments in the Register of Members' Interests, which were
less stringent at the time than they are now.

However, when he accepted the money, he was also under obligation to the
ministerial code which ruled that any member of the government should not
accept gifts or hospitality which "would or might appear to place him under
an obligation".