A FACE SAVING FARCE

How The Home Secretary Turned Potential Disaster Into Political Advantage
By Sharing His Secret

A cabinet minister's festive break is supposed to be one of only two times
in the year, Christmas and summer holiday, when he or she can truly get
away from the cares of office. And Jack Straw was planning a textbook
family Christmas to round off his most successful year in politics to date.

Unfortunately, for the government and the Straw household, he had not
reckoned on the intervention of the Mirror on Christmas Eve.

But this morning as Straw contemplates his turbulent week he can reflect on
an extraordinary recovery. When Mirror reporter Dawn Alford was arrested
for her part in the alleged drugs scandal involving his son Will, it looked
as though the story had taken a nasty turn for the Home Secretary.
Newspapers were agitating to name him, and suspicions of a cover-up were
being voiced. But with a series of bold moves he extricated himself and the
government from potential humiliation.

His decision to ring the editor of the Sun in his office at Wapping on
Wednesday now looks to have shifted events back in Straw's favour. He
wanted to talk and felt frustrated that he couldn't tell his side of the
story, he told Stuart Higgins. The Sun, now living in the post-Diana age of
tabloid fear of the Press Complaints Commission, lapped up his comments and
quoted him anonymously in its interview.

It was a ove which invited Scottish newspapers, not beholden to legal
restrictions in place south of the Border, to name him as the cabinet
minister with a 17-year-old son accused of drug dealing. That done, the Sun
could launch its appeal in the High Court against the injunction preventing
similar coverage in England. On Friday evening in the Home Office,
Whitehall, Straw got his wish: a chance to present himself as a concerned
father and a politician in favour of coming clean.

It was a perfect escape route, but it could have been so different. This
weekend politicians in other parties are expressing their sympathies with
Straw. It had been thought that his hard-line stance on drugs policy would
now look ridiculous - and some more excitable Conservative MPs may try to
mention it in perpetuity. But Straw's game-plan is the ultimate Blairite
tactic: turn weakness into strength. Now whenever the Home Secretary faces
accusations that he is hypocritical in taking a firm stance against drugs
and poor parenting he will say that the episode has given him valuable
experience of the problems so many famiiles now face.

It is a deft turnaround which looked unlikely when a fading issue - made
difficult to report by an injunction banning the naming of the Straw family
- - was revived with the arrest of Dawn Alford on Monday. The instigation of
criminal proceedings against an undercover reporter working to expose a
possible crime provoked outrage, both in the media and among opposition MPs
who suspected the government of putting pressure on the Metropolitan police
force.

Initially, most newspapers had seemed content to protect 17-year-old
William Straw's identity in line with the Press Complaints Commission's
code of conduct which states that the publication of information concerning
a minor is not justified by the celebrity of their parents.

But when their liberty to carry out investigations appeared threatened, and
their right to report on a matter of public interest was questioned, the
editors dug in their heels.

As Jack Straw's identity became widely known at Westminster, in Whitehall,
and even across the country, the situation descended into farce and
publication of his name became inevitable.

On Monday, Alford, who allegedly bought 10 UKP of cannabis from the
teenager nick-named "Whizz" in a pub, went along to a London police station
with the head of the newspaper's legal department to make a statement and
to hand over the cannabis, which had previously been sent to a laboratory
for analysis.

But the newspaper claims the tone of the interview gradually began to
change as Alford was asked why she had not handed the drug back earlier and
told she could have committed a criminal offence. Officers contacted the
Crown Prosecution Office and, minutes later, she was arrested. After
declining to answer further questions under caution, she was released on
police bail until February 5.

The following day, Mirror editor Piers Morgan lambasted the decision as "an
affront to investigative journalism" and urged the Home Secretary to launch
an inquiry into how this "farcical situation" had arisen.

His stance was echoed by shadow home secretary Brian Malwhinney who wrote
to the Metropolitan police and the director of public prosecutions, Dame
Barbara Mills, demanding to know who was responsible for the decision and
suggesting Alford's arrest had come as a result of political pressure from
the government. The accusation was later denied by the Acting Commissioner
Sir Brian Hayes and by Straw himself.

Debate continued to rage over whether or not newspapers could legally and
ethically name the teenager, with experts divided. Chairman of the Press
Complaints Commission Lord Wakeham warned that to do so would be in breach
of the industry's code of conduct.

But there was a growing feeling that Straw's role as Home Secretary and, in
particular, his tough stance on drugs and parental responsibility was in
itself justification. His identity had been common currency among MPs and
political commentators from the day the Mirror broke the story on Christmas
Eve.

The appearance of Jack Straw's photograph above every article on the affair
sign-posted the connection for shrewd readers, while, by Tuesday, those
internet subscribers interested enough to check it out could find his name
on its discussion pages.

Legally, it was argued, there was nothing to stop newspapers also naming
the boy as the section of the 1933 Children and Young Persons Act which
provides protection to minors does not come into force until charges have
been laid.

In addition, whereas in England anyone under 18 is a juvenile, under
Scotland's legal system the age limit is only 16. But still, there was the
PCC to contend with.

On Tuesday, the Sun decided to test the law. Editor Stuart Higgins phoned
Straw's office and told him they were going to name the Home Secretary the
following day.

Realising that the government was losing control of the situation, the
Attorney General, John Morris QC, successfully applied to the High Court
for an injunction. Number 10 was also deeply concerned about the unfolding
drama. Blair's press secretary Alastair Campbell realised that any
counter-attack by spin-doctors such as himself would merely give the
impression of a cover-up. Instead he largely avoided talking about it but,
when pressed, the former tabloid journalist told editors and political
reporters on the quiet that Straw really wanted to talk but legal problems
had made the situation difficult.

At this stage, Higgins accepted the court's decision, but criticised the
system which tied his hands, adding caustically that there should be prizes
for anyone in Britain who was not yet aware of the identity of the minister
involved.

Then Straw, picking up on the mounting sense of irritation in Britain's
newsrooms, moved to turn it back in his favour. He presented a picture of
himself as a man willing to be identified, but hamstrung by the vagaries of
the legal system.

In anonymous interviews printed on Thursday with the Sun and the Mirror, he
talked of his "frustration" at not being able to discuss the issue openly.
"I am not the sort of person who normally avoids confronting issues like
this publicly," he said.

He made no move to stop the Scottish press publishing his name and the
Scottish Daily Mail, The Scotsman and the Daily Record finally confirmed
the Home Secretary as the minister involved in the affair on their front
pages on Friday.

All three newspapers claimed they were acting in the public interest to end
a farce which threatened the freedom of speech and democracy.

A tidal wave was under way. He was named in the Dublin-based Irish
Independent and the French newspaper France-Soir, which is widely available
on London news-stands.

By mid-morning on Friday, most other Scottish media organisations had
jumped on the bandwagon, with Straw named in the evening papers in
Aberdeen, Dundee, Edinburgh and Glasgow. Commercial radio stations took the
same stance, although the BBC maintained its silence.

Weight was lent almost immediately to the newspapers' decision as it
emerged the seven-day police investigation into the drugs allegations had
concluded that no action should be taken against the teenager involved on
the grounds of the small amount of cannabis involved, his youth,
discrepancies between his stories and Alford's.

Although a final decision from the Crown Prosecution Service is not
expected until next week, it seems likely the case will never be aired in a
courtroom, making the issue of possible prejudice largely irrelevant.

Capitalising on the clamour for information and growing concern about the
legal anomolies which made piece-meal publication possible, the Sun decided
to appeal against the High Court's decision to issue an injunction. It won.

At last the floodgates could open in English newspapers and on television.
But Straw had done enough to deflect the potential scandal such that when
Will Straw was photographed in the family's London home it had transformed
into a tale of one family's complex problem. Perhaps readers had expected
Will Straw to be the cliched image of a drug- dealer, but in his black
T-shirt, earring, cropped hair and trainers he looked like so many other
people's children. The message was: if this happens to a successful,
middle-class family like the Straws, it could happen to you.

But still, the father in this case is in charge of government policy on
drugs. The clamour for legalisation of cannabis from the liberal press and
campaigners is set to grow. The Home Secretary may have rescued his
personal standing - as responsible father and competent minister - but he
has helped give the legalisation lobby their best public relations coup in
years.

As they move, inevitably, to exploit a weakness in the government's case
they will be able to tell the public: smoking cannabis isn't unusual - even
the Home Secretary's son allegedly does it.