LABOUR SUPPORTERS VILIFY STRAW OVER HIS DEFENSE OF DRUG LAWS

LONDON -- Jack Straw wears wire-rimmed glasses and red suspenders, and likes
to roll up his shirt sleeves. Late for an appointment, he is genuinely
apologetic. He certainly doesn't look anything like Ghenghis Khan.

But Britain's home secretary has become the bete noire of Britain's liberals
and large chunks of the Labour Party's traditional supporters, who are
furious over a whole range of law-and-order policies that Mr. Straw calls
"moderate and sensible" but which others consider draconian.

As Diane Abbott, a Labour MP, put it on a recent television show, "Jack
Straw's a lovely man. It's just that he makes Ghenghis Khan look like a
Teletubby." Ouch.

Conflicts With Liberals

Mr. Straw's battle with the liberal left began soon after the Labour Party
reconstructed itself to appeal to Britain's middle-class voters and regained
power in 1997. But, like many of the so-called New Labour government's
problems, this one has grown acute.

Recently, Mr. Straw caused a public uproar by lashing out at lawyers he
described as liberal BMW drivers who live in safe neighborhoods. They had
said his proposals for prosecuting nuisance neighbors -- mainly in tough
public-housing estates -- were in breach of the European convention on human
rights.

Home Secretary Jack Straw has upset many U.K. liberals with his policies.
"What made me angry was the willful refusal -- and it was willful -- to
comprehend the problems that we were dealing with," Mr. Straw said, with
irritation evident in his voice.

His latest tangle with liberals came last week, when an independent study of
Britain's tough drug laws found them counterproductive and recommended that
the possession or use of cannabis should no longer be punishable with jail
terms. Cannabis, Ecstasy and LSD would be reclassified to distinguish them
in the law from harder drugs such as heroin and cocaine.

The 150-page report -- produced by the Police Foundation, a charity headed
by Prince Charles -- found cannabis less harmful than alcohol or tobacco and
said Britain's 30-year-old drug laws do more harm than they prevent.

The Home Office dismissed the report quickly, but it drew widespread public
interest and support. Even the conservative Daily Telegraph, the newspaper
beloved of Britain's retired colonels, praised the study and called for
cannabis to be legalized.

It wasn't just the Daily Telegraph that backed the drugs report. The equally
right-wing Daily Mail agreed, and the MORI polling organization found that
the public went along with the report's main proposals by a margin of 48% to
36%, with the rest undecided.

Talk about a time warp. Not so long ago, such a report would have been
cheered lustily from the Labour benches in Parliament and jeered with
vein-popping outrage from Middle England. No more. Mr. Straw -- who even as
a student leader campaigned against cannabis -- has been left looking out of
touch.

Now a Labour MP has said he will put a bill before Parliament that
encapsulates the Police Foundation's proposals, meaning that the drugs
debate is likely to be an irritant for Mr. Straw for some time to come.

'Tough on Crime'

It wasn't supposed to be like this when the Labour Party swept to power in
May 1997. Anxious to refute the so-called loony-left image that kept Labour
out of office for 18 years, Tony Blair campaigned on a slogan of "tough on
crime, tough on the causes of crime." He wanted to make sure the
Conservative Party would never again be able to persuade Middle England that
Labour's criminal-justice policy was cooked up in the 1960s.

He assumed right, but perhaps too Right in the expectant political
atmosphere that followed 18 years of ideologically conservative rule under
Margaret Thatcher and John Major.

Mr. Straw, a longtime ally of Mr. Blair, has taken up the prime minister's
"tough" mantra with the sincerity of a true believer. He has, for example,
proposed cutting back on the number of crimes for which the accused is
entitled to demand trial by jury.

He is also pushing through Parliament a new anti-terrorism bill whose broad
language on the face of it puts at risk of prosecution anyone who supports
any organization outlawed by the government.

Disclosure Bill

And on Wednesday, Mr. Straw is due to send back to parliamentary committee a
draft for Britain's first Freedom of Information Act. But like so many of
the government's initiatives, a fundamentally liberal reaction to Mrs.
Thatcher's policies risks blowing up in the government's face, because it
will disappoint expectations.

The new law would create an information commissioner who would be
responsible for deciding what information should be made public. That would
mark a huge improvement on the all-but-total right to secrecy that British
governments have enjoyed until now.

But Mr. Straw has watered down the current draft of the bill considerably
from the version originally put forward by the government. It now gives
government ministers the right to overrule the new commissioner on a large
category of issues. "This is very different from what we were led to
expect," said Andrew Ecclestone, of the Campaign for Freedom of Information.

Mr. Straw argues that his law will "will produce a sea change in our
approach to the release of information." He justifies the restrictions on
the freedom-of-information principle by saying that private companies also
are entitled to keep secrets. "When was the last time the proceedings of a
newspaper's editorial conference were put on the front page?" he asked.

Compared with previous home secretaries, Mr. Straw is open with information.
He enjoys a good debate and is famous in his home constituency in Blackburn
for planting hecklers in the street meetings he holds there, in case the
debate gets too boringly uncontroversial.

He is also a dedicated campaigner for equality and for many issues of
personal liberty -- he seemed a little hurt when told that civil-liberties
campaigners consider him as the enemy.

Vote Could Measure Dissent

But many observers say his tough policies are contributing to growing unrest
among the broad coalition of voters who gave Labour its vast margin of
victory in 1997. The coming election on May 4 for mayor of London could show
just how big a problem Mr. Blair has on his hands. Ken Livingstone, the
left-wing rebel who broke away from the Labour Party to run against it as an
independent, is expected to win by a large margin.

But Mr. Straw is unrepentant. He freely acknowledges that he has changed his
mind -- in a more conservative direction -- on a number of what once were
core beliefs for the Labour Party. It was he, after all, who first
campaigned openly inside Labour for the party to scrap its ideological
commitment to public ownership.

But these, he insists, were the changes that enabled the party to get
elected again, returning to more Social Democratic roots after a flirtation
with Marxist policies in the 1970s and 1980s. And as for all the furor about
his tough-on-crime policies, he says: "What happens is that the waters close
over, these moderate and sensible changes take place, and no one dreams of
turning the clock back."

Write to Marc Champion at marc.champion@wsj.com1