British Party Leader Dumps Tough Drug Stance After Officials' Pasts Hit Papers

LONDON -- Fresh from claiming to have unified his quarrelsome party,
Conservative leader William Hague was obliged on Monday to abandon a
vaunted new hard-line policy on first-time drug offenders after seven of
his leadership associates said they had smoked marijuana in their youth.

The proposal, put forward at last week's upbeat Conservative Party
conference, called for $150 minimum fines and criminal records for people
caught with small amounts of soft drugs in their possession or even in
their bloodstreams. It was the centerpiece of a ``zero tolerance'' law and
order approach that the party is adopting as campaign strategy in the
election expected for next spring.

The plan was immediately attacked by police officials and social
organizations as draconian and unworkable and by senior figures in the
party, who feared it would cost them votes from young people and their
parents. But Hague said he had approved it in advance and would stick by it.

The uproar exposed a dispute between authoritarian and libertarian branches
of conservatism that appears to be replacing the issue of Britain's
relationship with Europe as the party's main source of internal discord.

The Mail on Sunday asked the 22 members of the shadow Cabinet -- the men
and women who are the out-of-power party's counterparts to government
Cabinet officers -- if they had ever taken drugs. Eleven, including Hague,
said they had not. Two declined comment, and two could not be reached. But
seven admitted they had.

The confessions were bashful ones, with the acts attributed to college age
curiosity and youthful interest in experimenting.

What was particularly damaging to the image of a freshly united party was
evidence that the confessions were planted by the liberal faction of the
Conservatives in an effort to humiliate the leader of the hard-line wing,
the shadow home secretary, Ann Widdecombe. The Mail on Sunday is a
newspaper with an authoritative voice among the Tory rank and file.

Widdecombe had brought cheering delegates to their feet Wednesday with a
speech outlining the tough new measures. Her convention address followed by
a day a similarly bravura performance by Michael Portillo, the other
well-known figure in the shadow Cabinet, who set out a vision of the
party's future as one more inclusive and tolerant of minorities, gays and
other people marginalized by Tories in the past.

When Widdecombe was asked later whether she approved of this
social-tolerance approach, she appeared to draw a defiant line in the sand
by saying she did not know what the phrase meant.

Hague flew back from a long post-conference weekend in Spain and promptly
announced that the proposal ``needs further consultation, discussion and
debate.'' He said the drug proposals were back ``on the table'' and open to
revision.

Asked if he had confidence in the seven men, he said: ``Of course. Any
Cabinet or shadow Cabinet that faces up to these problems is going to
include people who 20 or 30 years ago had some experience of drugs. It
would be extraordinary if it didn't.''