DRUG TSAR HITS AT 'DIRTY TRICKS' BY MINISTERS

BRITAIN'S "drug tsar", Keith Hellawell, has accused cabinet ministers of
orchestrating a dirty tricks campaign against him that is undermining the
government's drug strategy.

The former chief constable, now Tony Blair's most highly paid special
adviser, said that constant "sniping and innuendo" in the press had "the
potential to undermine what we are all working towards".

He said he was "increasingly frustrated" to find the government's 10-year
plan to tackle drug abuse praised across the world as the model for other
nations, but increasingly trivialised by the actions of some Labour
ministers and spin doctors in Britain.

Hellawell's decision to speak out, coming so soon after Lord Winston was
"persuaded" to withdraw his stinging criticisms of the government's record
on the NHS, will again focus attention on the tactics of Labour's spin
machine.

Hellawell, who earns pounds 106,000 a year, stopped short of naming
ministers, but close friends said Jack Cunningham, the former Cabinet Office
minister, had failed to back him up in the press and named another serving
member of the cabinet, and a minority of officials in the Home Office and
the Cabinet Office, as sources of negative stories.

They also suggested that the desire of Mo Mowlam, the new Cabinet Office
minister, to take on a greater share of the drug portfolio, something she
has told journalists about, was being wrongly interpreted by some of her
"over-enthusiastic" supporters as a call to attack Hellawell.

Hellawell, who oversees the drug-related spending of all government
departments, said: "The government has a very good story to tell on drugs,
but all this negative spinning for political reasons is derailing that." "I
don't know why it's happening. I am not a threat to anybody and I certainly
am not after anyone's job. This sniping and innuendo has real potential to
damage the government's drug strategy," he said.

"I depend on ministers to implement the parts of the government's strategy
and if I am seen to be 'damaged' it makes it harder for us to achieve those
things."

Last year a false story that he was driving around London in a pounds 70,000
Porsche 911 was not denied by the Cabinet Office, to which he is attached.
Also in 1999, the Australian government requested that he attend a
conference there, which he agreed to do after getting a signed letter from
his then "boss", Cunningham, to that effect.

Cunningham, who resigned days before the last government reshuffle, also
provided written permission for Hellawell to take his wife on the trip,
purely at his own expense.

Within hours of his arrival in Australia, a story that he was enjoying free
"junkets" with his wife leaked.

Hellawell said that America, the United Nations and a host of other
countries had all praised Tony Blair for having the courage to admit drugs
were a long-term problem and for implementing a long-term solution rather
than going for quick political gain.

"What seems to be happening is that people are asking for instant success,
and instead of explaining what we are doing long-term, certain people find
it easier to try to discredit me.

"I can deal with that on a personal level, but what it does is make the
prime minister's policy look flawed, and it isn't. The policies Mr Blair has
put in place will have an important impact on drug use in Britain over the
next few years and I would have thought most people in the government would
be proud of that."

However, Hellawell insisted that he did not want to be seen as 'fighting
back'. "I am not a politician, and I have no wish to be one. I do not get
involved in party politics. I just think it's time we recognised what is a
policy success and built on that."

Last night Cunningham, speaking from his home in the northeast, said: "I met
Keith Hellawell regularly in my office for one-to-one meetings. We discussed
the work programme and how we could effectively work well together. I was
very happy with the way he did his job.

"All his visits abroad were approved and I had no problem with them, or
indeed with him. He is in a high-profile job and, from time to time, I'm
sure some people will make comments or express opinions, but I would not
have tolerated attacks on him coming from my department."