JACK AND HIS CLEAN TALK

It was a close call but he seems to have got away with it. Only amid public
sympathy for him as a father could Jack Straw, the home secretary who takes
a hard line on drugs, hope to keep his career intact after his son was
alleged to have sold cannabis outside a pub.

Rightly calculating that an open account of his embarrassment over his
son's behaviour would strike a chord with thousands of other parents, Straw
appeared in humble and self-deprecatory mood last Friday.

"Being a parent means giving love and support and, when it is necessary,
confronting children with their wrongdoing," he said.

"I suppose it has underlined the fact that politicians' families are not
separate from the experiences many other families have suffered over the
years, especially if they have got teenage children."

Far from wilting under the spotlight when the injunction that had kept his
name a secret was finally lifted, Straw put on a cool performance, almost
turning misfortune to his advantage. It reinforced the view at Westminster
that he is one of the government's ablest ministers, providing the one sure
touch in a farce the party spin doctors found impossible to control.

What began as a relatively mundane piece of alleged law-breaking - Straw's
17-year-old son, William, is said to have sold #10 worth of cannabis resin
to a woman reporter he met in a south London pub shortly before Christmas -
had rapidly snowballed out of control.

By the time Mr Justice Toulson announced his decision to lift the ban on
naming the minister, Straw had already been named on the Internet and in
newspapers in Scotland, Ireland and France where the ban did not apply. It
made a mockery of legal attempts to keep the name a secret.

There was, too, always the likelihood that his name would emerge under
cover of parliamentary privilege when the House of Commons reconvened.
Making a clean breast of things was Straw's only way through the political
minefield.

Much as the home secretary might have got a grip on his own position, his
"coming out" is not the end of the story. Police may yet bring charges
against his son, providing more embarrassment in the short term which could
hamper the minister's stance on drugs.

The case has also blown away any notion that drugs are confined to the sink
estates of the inner cities.

Straw's son, with his earring, Fred Perry shirt and dazed expression,
appears a typical middle-class teenager, not someone about to enter the
criminal fraternity.

If he is considered extraordinary it is more for his outstanding academic
achievements - he took A-level mathematics a year early and starts his mock
exams in politics, physics and religious studies next week - than for his
social life.

Cases of the sort he was apparently involved in - doing a small favour for
someone rather than distributing large amounts of drugs for profit - would
normally merit little attention from the police.

Dabbling in drugs at his comprehensive school in Pimlico, west London
(where Straw is chairman of the governors), is regarded as so ordinary that
Philip Barnard, the headmaster, is not even planning to suspend William,
arguing that the youth has already suffered enough through the publicity
and the threat of court action.

"Drugs happen in society and schools are a reflection of society," said
Barnard yesterday. "It is probably happening in schools, and Pimlico won't
be alone in that. I would be living in a dream world if I didn't think that
any of our students were involved in drugs; 60%-70% of teenagers have tried
drugs."

Even Keith Hellawell, the government's much-trumpeted "drugs tsar" who
formally takes up his post tomorrow, agrees. "Smoking cannabis no longer
has any shock value for young people and in that sense it's normal in the
same way having a cigarette behind the bike sheds lost its mystique," he
said yesterday.

A report released by the left-leaning think-tank Demos barely a month ago
asserted that most drugs were used recreationally by young people who saw
them not as deviant but as a normal part of their social life; young
people, in other words, like William Straw's peer group.

SOME weeks ago, at a drinks party in Westminster, gossip about Straw's son
reached the ears of a convicted fraudster turned freelance journalist,
called Peter Trowell. "I heard Ken Livingstone [MP for Brent East] say
these things and I did what any journalist would do. I started to make
inquiries," admitted Trowell last week.

Sources close to The Mirror said Trowell, who served a sentence in Ford
open prison for pirating videos in breach of copyright laws, got to know
some of William's friends. Trowell says he did not talk to them but agrees
that he tipped off The Mirror. Asked about Trowell yesterday, Piers Morgan,
editor of The Mirror, said: "We are not going to talk about any sources. It
is no secret to Jack Straw that there was a freelance journalist involved."

Whoever that was, a meeting was arranged in The Cornet pub in Lavender
Hill, southwest London, attended by William's friends and Dawn Alford, an
undercover reporter from The Mirror. William reportedly arrived, talked to
his friends and was then introduced to Alford. After some drinks and
discussion about drugs, he allegedly obtained 1.92 grams of cannabis which
he handed to Alford outside the pub in return for #10.

Trowell, who is well known in the pub which is a few minutes' walk from his
flat overlooking Clapham Common, admitted yesterday that he was in the pub
at the time, but said he had had no conversations with William or his
friends. He refused to say whether he was paid by The Mirror for his part
in the affair.

However unedifying its methods, the Mirror had its evidence - a small lump
of cannabis resin - and the reporters left. Nothing happened for a week.
For William there was no thought of impending havoc; instead he was
celebrating academic success when the heavens opened.

By bittersweet irony, on Christmas Eve - the same morning that The Mirror
published its account of buying cannabis from the minister's son - a letter
arrived offering William a place at Oxford to study politics, philosophy
and economics.

The Straw family are close; just a week ago they were spotted together in a
pub in Chipping Norton happily enjoying a post-pantomime drink. Although
William had a burgeoning social life in London, his father clearly did not
suspect he might be dabbling in drugs.

Genuinely shocked by The Mirror's allegations, Straw confronted his son and
then called Tony Blair. The call was picked up by Alastair Campbell,
Blair's trusted press secretary, and the three talked on a conference call
and decided to get legal advice. Straw had in any case already decided that
his son must go to the police.

As he was under 18, once he had done so and given a statement, it was
thought he could not be identified and therefore neither could his father.
Retreating to the family cottagein Oxfordshire, Straw perhaps calculated
that by the time the holidays were over the fuss would have died down. But
the inept handling of the situation last week ensured the affair stayed on
the front pages.

Not identifying Straw in the first instance gave him a breathing space. It
was assumed by all that the secrecy about the youth's identity was covered
by the Children and Young Person's Act which forbids publication of the
names of minors engaged in criminal proceedings. However, the rumour mill
at Westminster and beyond began cranking up as soon as the story appeared.

The privileged few in the media and Westminster knew immediately the
identity of the unnamed cabinet minister, and it did not take people
outside very long to cotton on.

Privately, the newspapers scented blood. Straw had made earnest demands for
curfews for young tearaways and strong pronouncements on drugs and parental
responsibility. Only a few weeks ago he had addressed the party conference,
declaring that drugs "wreck lives and weaken families". Here he was hoist
by his own petard - only nobody was supposed to know.

THE legal big guns weighed in when newspapers began to question the cloak
of anonymity, reinforced by the minister's solicitor sternly warning
editors that to name his client or his son would be contempt of court.

On Monday, when Alford went to the police to make a voluntary statement
about the affair, she was arrested. This was a highly unusual move which
led to claims that the police had been "leant on" to protect the minister.

Doubts about the boy's right to anonymity increased. He was not, after all,
yet involved in criminal proceedings, so why not name him? The Sun
threatened to do so but just before it was due to go to press, John Morris,
the attorney-general, applied for and won an injunction preventing
publication.

The injunction was granted not under the auspices of the Children and Young
Person's Act, but the law covering contempt of court, a novel use of that
law which merely fuelled the argument. To some observers the courts seemed
to be making law on the hoof, using the contempt act as a way to gag the
press. Straw - still officially anonymous - topped off the absurdity by
telephoning The Sun and telling the editor he had longed to speak out but
had been prevented by legal advice. The dam was about to burst.

NOW we all know. And now we do, there is no way to "rewind the clock", as
Straw said yesterday. William is likely to pay a high price for what may
have been a moment of teenage foolishness. Whatever he does, he will
probably be for ever known as the "minister's son caught with drugs in the
pub" in private as well as public life.

The episode also still has the potential to blight Straw's career, even
though he has played it cleverly. He did not rise to the bait when it was
suggested to him that Piers Morgan, the editor of The Mirror, was being a
humbug by saying he had rung Straw in the first instance to try to keep
William away from a party where harder drugs might be available. Instead,
Straw humbly said he was "grateful" that Morgan had contacted
him and declared that he had "no complaints at all".

He earned himself a similar number of Brownie points by saying that if his
son ended up with a criminal record that would be the inevitable
consequence of doing something unlawful and that he would ask for "no
favours".

Being a nice guy is one thing, however; being an effective home secretary
is another. If Straw does face calls for his resignation, he can count on
the support not only of Blair, but also of the growing chorus of ministers
to whom he has become something approaching a hero.

Yet some Conservatives, not surprisingly, wonder whether his position has
not been fatally undermined.

"People have to ask whether this whole affair now affects Straw's ability
to do his job," said one. "Can he with any credibility say again the things
he has said in the past about parents being responsible for their children?
Time will tell."

Straw, of course, will seek to use his personal anguish to reinforce his
hard line on drugs, but now that he has so unwillingly and personally been
dragged into the debate, others will seek to use the home secretary's
experience to sway him the other way.

Paul Flynn, a Labour MP and a campaigner for the decriminalisation of
cannabis, said yesterday that although Straw should not resign he was in an
"impossible position". In the face of such questioning, Straw may yet find
his position weakened, perhaps even untenable.

There is, too, a final irony yet to be addressed: what, at 17, was William
Straw doing drinking in a pub in the first place? But then none of us these
days thinks that is a crime, do we?

Additional reporting: Maurice Chittenden, Michael Prescott and Zoe Brennan