Blair accused of drugs hypocrisy
by Maurice Chittenden and Michael Prescott

THE Conservatives accused Labour of hypocrisy on drugs after members of
Oasis and a scene from the controversial film Trainspotting were featured
in a video promoting Britain.

The eightminute video, which was shown last week to representatives of 51
Commonwealth leaders at the summit in Edinburgh, provoked outrage in the
shadow cabinet. "Many people in this country will be appalled that Tony
Blair's vision of socalled new Britain has at its heart people like the
Gallagher brothers with their well known views on drug taking," said Sir
Brian Mawhinney, shadow home secretary.

"Many will be ashamed that theirs was the image that was portrayed to the
Commonwealth leaders."

The Gallaghers, who are featured in a short clip, prompted a storm of
protest when they used fourletter words and supported drug taking in an
interview on Radio 1 last week. Noel Gallagher met Blair at a recent arts
party in Downing Street. In the radio interview, he said the only reason
anyone would want to go to No 10 was to use "the bog".

More contentious was the decision to include an image from Trainspotting
showing Ewan McGregor, in the role of Renton, a fasttalking heroin addict,
falling backwards in a trance. In the scene before this in the film he
injects himself with the drug.

The Tories claimed the video exposed the hypocrisy of Labour's supposed
hard line on drugs. "New Labour says it is tough on drugs but it is clearly
soft on those who would like to persuade young people that drug taking is
harmless. It is another example of Mr Blair saying one thing and doing
another," Mawhinney said.

Another senior Tory said: "This a disgrace. Why on earth did Tony Blair
select scenes of heroin addiction as the image of Britain he wanted to be
projected abroad?"

The Oasis management rejected the criticism, saying the group had
spearheaded a renaissance in British pop music which now earned more in
exports than the steel industry. A spokesman for Alan McGee, who runs
Creation Records, Oasis's label, said it was a case of "the usual suspects"
attacking the culture of young Britain which has brought the youth of
Europe flocking to London.

"Oasis are a great British success story. They have contributed incredibly
to the growth of the music industry in the past few years," he said.
"Trainspotting has been one of the major factors in the renaissance of the
British film industry, as has the work of Irvine Welsh [who wrote the book]
in the flowering of British literature in the 1990s."

Welsh's seedy tale of heroin abuse was voted fiction book of the year in a
survey of 160 MPs, including 42 Tories, by Dillons bookstore.

Conservative MPs attending William Hague's bonding session last week were
at pains to deny suggestions that any of the Bob Dylan songs included in a
final singalong session had any drug connotations.

McGee has bought £250,000 worth of shares in Chelsea football club.