CANNABIS, COCAINE AND THE COURT OF CAMERON

So he smoked cannabis at school. But has the Conservative leader ever
taken class A drugs? Cole Moreton tells the inside story of how his
friends have protected him from the question - and reveals why it is
unlikely to go away

The question they dreaded in the court of David Cameron was looming.
If asked, it could scupper the young Tory's chances of leading his
party - and maybe even end his political career: "Have you ever taken
class A drugs?"

His leadership rival David Davis gave a straight "no" when asked at
the hustings in Westminster in 2005. Kenneth Clarke raised the stakes
by adding, unprompted: "If it's of interest to you, I have not taken cocaine."

His answer was a nod to rumours sweeping the House of Commons that Mr
Cameron, the new darling of Tory modernisers, had snorted the drug
while working in the media hothouse of Carlton Television - and
possibly even as a special adviser at the Home Office. Next up to
face the rightwing '92 Group of backbenchers that afternoon in
October was Mr Cameron himself. There seemed no hope of avoiding a
statement on drugs that could haunt him for ever.

But the question was never asked. Not for the first time - or the
last - Mr Cameron had been protected from answering enquiries about
his past. The full story of how he was spared that scrutiny, told for
the first time today, emerges as the pressure grows for him to come
clean about his involvement with drugs.

The question has not gone away - and the possibility of it being
deflected for ever by the tight circle of friends around him is
diminishing fast. The fact that he smoked cannabis as a 15-year-old,
revealed in this newspaper last Sunday, has led to renewed demands
that the Tory leader give a full account of which illegal substances
he has used and when.

"David Cameron says law-makers must not be lawbreakers - but a
special adviser to the Home Secretary makes more drug laws than most
MPs," Lord Oakeshott said yesterday. The Liberal Democrat peer was
special adviser to Roy Jenkins when he was Home Secretary. "Cameron
must just tell us when he stopped taking illegal drugs, not hide
behind his shifty soundbite."

His remarks follow those of Kitty Usher, a ministerial aide to
Margaret Hodge, who broke the Government's silence on the subject
last week: "I suspect the real reason he is not commenting is because
he has refused to deny much more serious allegations about hard drug
use and doesn't want to come clean about that."

So far Mr Cameron has stuck firmly to his strategy of refusing to
answer questions about a "private past" before he became an MP in
2001, although it is unclear whether he means this to include his
earlier time as an adviser. Such stonewalling may keep reporters at
bay, but his own Tory MP colleagues are a very different matter.

The plot to confront Mr Cameron with a direct question about cocaine
was hatched at a meeting of David Davis's campaign team on the
morning of 12 October 2005. With his own bid for the leadership
flagging, Mr Davis knew the issue of drugs was his best hope of
getting back on equal terms with the new front-runner.

Among the Davis supporters who gathered that day in the House was the
newly elected MP Mark Pritchard. Just who came up with the idea of
ambushing Mr Cameron at the '92 Group is not known; one person
present suggests a "corporate view" was taken. In any case, it was Mr
Pritchard who put the class A question that afternoon.

But Mr Cameron had been warned in advance of what he might expect, by
another Davis supporter, David Ruffley. A special adviser in the John
Major government at the same time as Mr Cameron, he was appalled at
what he considered a "dirty trick".

Mr Ruffley secretly promised a leading lieutenant in the Cameron camp
that he would try to foil the plot. Quite what happened next is a
matter of dispute. Witnesses at the time saw Mr Ruffley and Mr
Pritchard engaged in heated debate in a corridor near where the
hustings were taking place, but the latter denies absolutely that he
was "leant on".

What is not in dispute is that Mr Cameron was not asked directly
before his peers whether he ever taken any class A substances. A
softer question on drugs was asked by another MP, which would have
made it very clear that a follow-up was not just a routine enquiry.
But Mr Pritchard was silent.

There was also silence about the Eton story until it was revealed by
Independent on Sunday writers Francis Elliott and James Hanning.
Their book suggests that Mr Cameron continued smoking cannabis at
Oxford, albeit infrequently and in moderate quantities, after being
confronted by his headmaster.

Despite distractions he got a first in politics, philosophy and
economics at Oxford and joined the Conservative Research Department,
eventually working in the Treasury and the Home Office. If he did
take cocaine or any other class A drug during this early stage of his
career he has been remarkably well-served by any fellow users. As
public affairs manager for Carlton Television, a job for which he was
headhunted in 1994, he might have been exposed to drug-taking
individuals. But Mr Cameron either abstained or was circumspect with
whom he indulged, write Elliott and Hanning. The future Tory leader
stuck to lager at TV industry gatherings where "cocaine use is hardly unknown".

His private world would seem largely immune to the charms of tabloid
cheque-books, given that his schoolboy friends in the exclusive
Bullingdon club went on to become bankers, hedge-fund managers and
pillars of the Establishment. Not the sorts to spill the beans for money.

He is better off, therefore, than the shadow Chancellor George
Osborne, whose social circle as a young man was much wider. His
friendship with a woman he knew in 1993 as Natalie Rowe came back to
haunt him in October 2005 when the former prostitute alleged he had
taken cocaine with her. Mr Osborne denied the drug claims, but had to
admit he had known Ms Rowe. It was precisely the sort of "kiss 'n'
tell" that Mr Cameron's upper-class set would never dream of.

But as his profile grows there are now some places where not even
moneyed or influential friends can help him - such as the set of
Channel 4 News. It was here in October 2005, just after the hustings,
that presenter Alex Thomson asked the question MPs had avoided. After
rehearsing Mr Cameron's usual stance, Thomson said: "If I asked you
if you'd snorted cocaine as an MP, you'd therefore say 'No' wouldn't
you?" Mr Cameron replied: "That's right, but please, I mean, I think
we've dealt with this issue ..."

To which the presenter, showing more persistence than a roomful of
backbenchers, said, "So that's 'No?'" Cameron said: "I've absolutely
answered your question." Thomson said: "Say no." And Cameron said:
"I've just said no."

A C4 insider said yesterday that there was still ill-feeling in the
Tory leader's camp towards the programme, but described the MP as "a
bad loser". Mr Cameron may consider such interrogation impolite or
inappropriate, but if he doesn't confront it soon there is no chance
of the question going away.