I honestly wouldn’t have dreamt of getting my oar in here (private grief and all that…) if the Tory Party leadership contest hadn’t become so God-damn entertaining. Cameron’s refusal to confirm or deny is the only politically acceptable response to the drugs question. Everyone (I mean everyone – we are all, after all, sophisticated political semioticians these days) knows that a refusal to confirm or deny is effectively an admission.
Everyone knows that an actual admission would have torpedoed Cameron’s campaign with the league of blue-rinsers who control the fate of the final two. Everyone knows that everyone of Cameron’s generation has at least tried drugs and everyone knows that his carefully executed strategy is intended to protect him from both the wrath of the Tory grassroots and the risk of a run of ‘Cameron always hogged the bong’ or ‘David rolled an awesome spliff’ Sunday newspaper stories. Give the man a break. No politician of Cameron’s age could do anything else.