The Joy of Six 1336

"The government is trying to solve the wrong problem. They are focusing on those who are out of work, when it is increasingly clear that one big reason people with disabilities are not in employment is because work environments have fewer roles they can fill." Ruth Patrick and Aaron Reeves argue that cuts and caps to benefits have always harmed people, not helped them into work.

Fred Garratt-Stanley, writing for The Lead, finds malaise, discontent and the rise of Reform UK at the English seaside. "When you take away someone’s belief in the place they live in, you lay the groundwork for radicalisation. And when progressives lose the argument and subscribe to the right-wing view on the roots of this deprivation, it creates a vacuum waiting to be filled."

Wendy Chamberlain reviews The List - a moving documentary about one family’s attempt to rescue hundreds of artists from the Taliban during the fall of Kabul in 2021.

Since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, the state-controlled international news channel RT has all but disappeared from Western screens. But, report Rina Nikolaeva, Anastasia Korotkova and Dmitry Velikovsky, vloggers are being paid to spread the same pro-Russian propaganda.

"In 1968, when I was 28, I wrote the first English book on art deco." Bevis Hillier talks to dezeen about the centenary of the style.

Jim McCarthy, in an extract from his book Flowers in the Rain: The Untold Story of The Move, writes about the band and drugs: "Trevor Burton was definite and truthful, about the path into drug taking, 'It was only Ace and me that took drugs in The Move. We were like kids in the sweet shop. Our other thing was amphetamines. When you’re gigging six nights a week - you don’t mind a little help.'"

Telford cheese thief ordered to go to drugs rehab

Though the story soon disappears behind its paywall, the Shropshire Star wins our Headline of the Day Award - and not for the first time.

I don't know what the judges think, but to me the case for legalising cheese is overwhelming. Better that people buy it in supermarkets than buy (or steal) it from street-corner dealers.

Parents of Nigel Farage’s daughter’s boyfriend ran Lewisham drug line

After the judges had drawn up and pored over a family tree, they resolved to give today's Headline of the Day Award to the News Shopper.

Thank you to the reader who nominated it.

Photo by binks from MorgueFile.

Another great impersonation of Terry Wogan by Peter Serafinowicz and another misbegotten script

After I posted that brilliant Peter Serafinowicz impersonation of Terry Wogan, a reader sent me another example.

Though it takes us into the realms of fantasy, this one is spot on too.

Yet whoever wrote the script didn't know much about Wogan. His radio show depended on letters from women listeners. He and they kept running jokes going and visited all sorts of unexpected places.

I know this because I used Radio 2 as a calming background when I was writing university essays.

Misbegotten satire of this kind is about making your viewers feel superior rather than about its target, and risks toppling into snobbery.

GUEST POST Abandoning the War on Drugs would bring Britain so many benefits

Lee Dargue says legalising and regulating currently illegal drugs would bring us benefits in all sorts of areas.

Politicians (and press officers) are always after policies that that can easily explain, that will attract the public, and bring tangible results.

How about a policy that will reduce:

• crime (organised criminal gangs (OCGs), violent and sexual crime, burglary, theft, car crime), 
• the number of knives and guns on our streets
• street gangs
• the exploitation of people of all ages (including via ‘county lines’)
• health harms (to people and public health), thus reducing the strain on our health and care services.

whilst also increasing:

• liberty for people who aren’t harming others
• time for the police to spend on 'everyday' criminal matters in their neighbourhoods
• safety and cleanliness of our streets and communities.

All of this could be achieved by the UK legalising and regulating currently illegal drugs. Note that I said reduce bad things and increase good things - it’s not a silver bullet for all these matters, but it is a single bullet to help with all of them.

The crime described is largely funded by the production, distribution, and supply of illicit drugs. The most well-known include cannabis, heroin, and crack (the most potent version of cocaine, which is smoked). 

The sale of these items produces vast amounts of money for individuals and OCGs, which also harming people who take them – largely because the products they take, being illegal, are subject to no quality control.

In all the elections I’ve ran in (Westminster, local and a European) I’ve bought up drug law reform campaigns, including my view that we should legalise currently illegal drugs. 

Aside from a few nervous people (who calm quickly when I chat with them after the event) the audience of any hustings either agrees or is largely dispassionate about the matter. There isn’t a howl of panic (we leave that to the “newspapers” that make up stories on drugs to worry their readers). 

Indeed, the only time I had someone shout at me was at my own Party’s conference in 2017, where, supporting a policy of legalising cannabis, I was accused of genocide in North Africa. Thankfully it was a lone view! 

So, despite not finding any horror, or even much disagreement to my proposals (even the usually panicked press were neutral or supportive when they reported on the aforementioned conference policy), why are most politicians reticent to promote the idea? 

For some, such as Labour and Tory frontbenchers, they cling to the outdated notion that the 'War on Drugs' is either going well (it isn’t) or that they must maintain their 'tough on crime' chest-beating stance. 

The War on Drugs, started by the most discredited - sorry, second most discredited - US President, Nixon, is steeped in racism and an authoritarian grasp of power, not the harm reduction and public health approaches we need (and that Britain had before we succumbed to international pressure) has been favoured by all governments since the introduction of the harm-inducing Misuse of Drugs Act 1971. 

The small glimmer of hope that liberals in coalition in 2010 could change the narrative was quashed, when Home Office minister Norman Baker quit in exasperation of the Theresa May-led department being too difficult to work in, where even discussion of matters like drug law reform were effectively outlawed. Baker asked simply that we review evidence, but this, par for the course, was too much for the Tory government. 

Since then, (now former) Lib Dem MP Norman Lamb, Labour MP Jeff Smith, and Conservative MP Crispin Blunt tried hard to keep drug law reform on the radar and others too. However, it’s largely still a taboo issue. 

More worryingly, the Lib Dems seem to have fallen silent on the matter – and there is an active policy of supporting a legalised, regulated market for cannabis. 

Whilst I’d like all readers to get on the bus of drug law reform, I urge the Lib Dems to reignite (no pun intended) their cannabis policy, for liberty, for public health and protection, and yes, even for politics - to tap into the growing number of voters who think it’s time we re-thought our country’s draconian, unworkable laws on prohibition.

Whilst I’ve focused on the political element here, there are many fantastic organisations that campaign and educate on drug law reform, and, at the known risk of leaving many out, I’d advise you to look out for Transform, Anyone’s Child, Release and LEAP for starters. 

The Neil Woods book (no, I don’t get kickbacks) Drug Wars is a great starter for all those wanting to learn more.

Lee Dargue is a Liberal Democrat activist from Birmingham. You can follow him on Twitter.

The Joy of Six 1079

Matthew Pennell explains why our economic situation is seriously bad and why the government's reponse appears absurd.

"Nowhere in the world does tradition confer intellectual status as it does in Oxford and Cambridge. Impressionable teenagers (I accuse myself!) grow towards the myth like plants towards the sun - even in this era of pink-haired gender revolutionaries, Oxbridge is filled with preposterous tweed-jacketed 19-year-olds. Many will perpetuate their affectations into adulthood." James Marriott says Oxbridge is to blame for the British affliction of mistaking fusty learning for intellectual heft.

Mark Conrad lays bare the brutal reality of county lines: "The grim and uncomfortable truth of the modern war on drugs is that while the ultimate crime bosses are often wealthy and middle-aged, their frontline foot-soldiers are predominantly adolescents. Often very young. Think primary school age."

"Why does Gabor have poor impulse control, hyperactivity and tuning out? Because he’s got ADHD. How do we know he’s got ADHD? Because he’s got poor impulse control, tunes out, and he’s hyperactive. Why is he hyperactive, tunes out and has poor impulse control? He’s got ADHD. How do we know he’s got ADHD? Because — you know, it’s circular, it doesn’t explain it, it doesn’t explain anything." Gabor Maté on the circularity of the ADHD diagnosis.

"Pringles, skittles and a ham sambo: check. Camera, phone, pen and notepad: check. Steely determination: let's see." Siobhan Osgood explores Dublin's suburbs, looking for lost railway stations.

James Devereux looks at John Cleese's book on creativity.

Never mind abolishing the royal family, did Liz Truss vote to decriminalise cannabis?

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The media has picked up on the 1994 Liberal Democrat conference where Liz Truss unsuccessfully moved a motion calling for the abolition of the royal family.

A glance at Liberator 224, the first issue published after that conference, reveals that Truss's motion was very much a sideshow.

What really annoyed the party leadership that September was conference calling for the establishment of a royal commission on drug policy. 

Though this fell some way short of the call for the decriminalisation of cannabis the original motion sought, Paddy Ashdown, then the party's leader, was said to be furious.

In later years he admitted that the idea of decriminalisation had proved much more popular with the public than he'd expected. Today, it is Liberal Democrat policy.

But there were two brief mention of Liz Truss's royal family motion in that issue.

Radical Bulletin reported:

No party serious about constitutional reform can shy away from the future role of the monarchy, and the Liberal Democrats were right to debate it, But then the Youth and Students motion was predictably defeated, a group of right-wing youths started waving Union Jacks and singing patriotic songs. If these sad gits are this bad in their early twenties, what on earth will they be like in middle age?

I imagine they're all in the Conservative Party and looking forward to voting for Liz Truss

Meanwhile, Lord Bonkers commented in his diary:

One disappointment is that the Conference declines to order the immediate transportation of the entire Royal Family.

Back to the motion calling for the decriminalisation of cannabis, which was moved by the Saffron Walden branch of the party and enthusiastically supported by LDYS (Liberal Democrat Youth and Students - then the party's youth wing).

So what I really want to know is: did Liz Truss back the call for the decriminalisation of cannabis in the original motion?

Later. This post has been slightly revised as it originally said the drugs motion came from LDYS.

Howard Marks at the haunted Prince of Wales Inn

The haunted wall of the Prince of Wales Inn at Kenfig makes another appearance, thanks to a tip from a reader.

In 2007 Wales on Sunday interviewed the late Howard Marks, who had somehow contrived to become a celebrity drug smuggler, at this very pub:

"This pub’s got a talking wall, do you want to come and see?”

What?

"It’s haunted. Shall we see if the landlord will show us?"

Not exactly a seamless way to change the subject but, hell, let’s hear what the wall has to say.

Howard shuffles towards the bar and landlord Gareth Maund takes us up the stone stairs to a room once used as a courthouse.

Howard is clearly fascinated as Gareth recounts chapter and verse about the bar.

And doubtless he’s happy to be out of his interrogator’s hands.

It's amazing how many supposedly haunted pubs are claimed to have been courthouses.

When he died in 2016 his Guardian obituary began:

Howard Marks, who has died aged 70 of cancer, was Britain’s best-known and most charming drug smuggler, and also a successful author and raconteur. 

He translated a lifetime of international cannabis dealing and a long stretch in an American jail into a bestselling book, Mr Nice (1996), and a career as a stand-up performer.

And went on to record that:

After seven years, he was freed, receiving maximum parole, and returned initially to Mallorca and his family. He set about writing Mr Nice, a frank autobiography which has sold more than 1m copies. 

He also started doing one-man shows, telling anecdotes, joint in hand, to sell-out theatre audiences, many of whom had not been born when he was. arrested.

"Mr Nice" was one of the many aliases he used in the course of his smuggling businesses and also, many agreed, a fair description of his character,

Marks was born at Kenfig Hill, a mining village a couple of miles inland from Kenfig, which overlooks the Bristol Channel.

Winchelsea Beach and the Summer of Love

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I was there in 1967 and I remember it. But as I was only seven years old, that is to be expected.

We did, though, have a drug-influenced game at primary school. It involved sniffing a crumpled leaf from a bush growing on the generous playing fields and then running around being silly. 

It made a change from machine gunning Germans, which is what we generally did at play time.

For me the Summer of Love meant a week's holiday on a caravan park at Winchelsea Beach in Sussex. I think this was a visit to Malcolm Saville country before I had read any of his books, though as I was a precocious reader it may not be the case.

And that holiday reminds me of four things.

The first was a toy. You pulled a toothed strip through a gear wheel to send a disc spinning away into the distance. They should bring it back.

The second was The Beatles' song All You Need is Love, which was on the radio everywhere all the time.

The third is another record: Up, Up and Away. In the US it was a hit for Fifth Dimension, a group fronted by the wonderful Marilyn McCoo. But for some reason it was the Johnny Mann Singers who had a hit with it in the UK.

Johnny Mann Singers? Me too, but Wikipedia will tell you about Johnny Mann.

The fourth is that, before we set off, I got a little lecture from my parents about not playing with anything metal I found on the beach.

This, which must have been occasioned by the way these beaches had been mined against the threat of Nazi invaion, is a reminder that 1967 is several times near the second world war than the present day.

I do have another musical memory from the first Summer of Love. For me, Procul Harum's A Whiter Shade of Pale is inextricably linked with the Essex village of Tollesbury.

This is where my mother's mother's family came from and where my mother stayed as a little girl during the war.

So I must have had a first holiday there a little earlier that summer, But we shall play out with the Johnny Mann Singers...

Six of the Best 983

Richard Kemp calls on Liverpool to move away from the mayor and cabinet system, which "essentially concentrates power into the hands of one person who chooses the Cabinet and then chucks out those that disagree".

"Because criminalising drugs does not really prevent drug use, decriminalising does not really increase it. Portugal, which decriminalised the personal possession of all drugs in 2001 in response to high illicit drug use, has much lower rates of drug use than the European average." Scott Atkins and Clayton Mosher on the global movement towards decriminalisation of drugs.

A classical education was never just for the elite, but was a precious and inspiring part of working-class British life, argues Edith Hall.

Stephen Greenblatt looks at the impact of the plague on Shakespeare's plays: "As a shareholder and sometime actor in his playing company, as well as its principal playwright, Shakespeare had to grapple throughout his career with these repeated, economically devastating closings."

"I can't help but wish, having watched Sparrows Can't Sing, is that she'd made a few more films like this before launching herself fully into the Carry Ons. There was certainly a buzz around Babs immediately after Sparrows came out. The premiere of the film attracted a wealth of publicity and many celebrities attended. Barbara was nominated for a BAFTA and was courted by American agents, making appearances on U.S chat shows." Carry On Blogging celebrates Barbara Windsor.

Rob Tannenbaum reminds us that, though disco and the Bee Gees are now widely beloved, that wasn’t the case 40 years ago.

Six of the Best 922

It's fair to say Nick Tyrone is not impressed by the Liberal Democrats who are fasting to show solidarity with Muslims: "In the Ramadan stunt, they have found something that will come across as pandering, virtue signalling and hucksterish to a large section of the electorate, and yet also manages to miss its intended target and potentially offend the people it was being used to suck up to."

Article 39 says the government is using the Covid-19 crisis as an excuse to remove protections for children in public care.

"Fatal overdoses have plummeted, from more than 350 a year in 2001 to about 50 a year now, one of the lowest rates in Europe. HIV infections resulting from injection drug use also have nearly vanished, dropping from 500 new cases in 2006 to 18 in 2017." Aubrey Whelan looks at the result of Portugal's decision to decriminalise the use of all drugs.

Aaron Sankin discovers that Facebook lets advertisers target users who are interested in pseudoscience.

David Gray and Mary Colwell discuss the plight of the curlew and conserving wildlife.

"The trips were fantastic. Mum packed the bare necessities and we jumped on the back of a lorry. At the age of five, venturing beyond the Blackwall Tunnel was an adventure. Rolling through the villages and countryside, waving to everyone we saw was too exciting for words." David Essex is one of many Londoners who share their memories of hop-picking in Kent with Colin Grainger.

Rolling Stones: Ruby Tuesday

I was on a little bus yesterday and the driver had decided to entertain his passengers by playing a selection of Sixties classics.

This was one of them and it sounded good.

But who was Ruby Tuesday?

According to Keith Richards she was his girlfriend Linda Keith, who was a Vogue model and has another claim to rock fame. It was she who introduced Jimi Hendrix to his future manager, Chas Chandler of the Animals.

Linda Keith was the daughter of Alan Keith, an actor and disc jokey, who was a stalwart of Radio 2 into his nineties.

Alan Keith was the brother of the better-known actor David Kossoff, who later became a campaigner against drugs.

David Kossoff campaigned against drugs because his son Paul Kossoff, the lead guitarist with Free, died from an overdose at the age of 25.

Six of the Best 887

"Last year, 1584 children were unnecessarily dragged through the courts for possession of cannabis, with four out of five being found guilty, resulting in criminal records that will haunt them for their whole lives." Norman Lamb makes the case for a legal, regulated cannabis market.

David Herdson asks why the European Research Group waved through Theresa May's withdrawal agreement at Christmas 2017.

John Bull on the Harrow and Wealdstone railway disaster of 1952, which led to the development of the modern paramedic.

"The quickest way to an audience’s heart is to kill off one or both of your character’s parents." Manvir Singh looks at the extraordinary appeal of literary orphans.

Jennie Rigg has been to see Alice Cooper.

"These years, late in the century's first decade, may have been the apogee of Trescothick's career. If his health had allowed it, he would still have been young enough and good enough to play for England, but he was forced by circumstances to tread the county game's boards instead." Brian Carpenter celebrates the career of Marcus Trescothick.

Six of the Best 871

"Hundreds of immigrant children who have been separated from their parents or family members are being held in dirty, neglectful, and dangerous conditions at Border Patrol facilities in Texas." Isaac Chotiner interviews the lawyers who went to see them.

The stickiest points in the Brexit negotiations, including the Northern Ireland backstop and the decision to trigger Article 50 so early, reveal that Britain never really understood how the European Union works, argues N. Piers Ludlow.

Sophie Scott warned three years ago that we should stop laughing at politicians like Boris Johnson and Donald Trump.

Reclaiming the city was a prominent theme at this year's Sheffield documentary festival, reports Caitlin Quinlan.

Mike Jay explains why psychedelic culture remains the preserve of privileged white men.

"In 1970 and 1971 Chelsea made headlines because of their football and their trophies. Positive on-pitch headlines ebbed away as less than positive on- and off-pitch headlines became more prevalent." Tim Rolls is publishing a history of the club's decline and fall in the 1970s.

Huge cannabis farm found at Heinz mushroom soup mine in the Westcountry

DevonLive wins our Headline of the Day Award.

The judges praised the insight the website gives into Heinz's production methods while questioning how long it is that "West Country" has been one word.

Six of the Best 800

"Months before the United States narrowly elected Trump, the United Kingdom narrowly elected to withdraw from the European Union. Both votes advanced Russian foreign policy goals — in the latter case, by splitting up the Western alliance. (Trump has energetically pursued this strategy, too.) Russia employed many of the same tools to influence both elections." Jonathan Chait joins the dots.

Ray Lakeman’s sons died after taking ecstasy. In an interview with Decca Aitkenhead he says that had the drugs been legal and regulated, it might have saved them

Paul Butler reviews a book on the renewal of urban life in the United States: "The United States is nearly the safest that it has been in 50 years. You would not realise this if you watch local news programs — which still lead with sensational violent offences conducted by young black men — or believe President Trump, who has made the false claim that the murder rate is the highest it has been in 47 years."

The adolescent egalitarianism of Ayn Rand enjoys an undeserved popularity. Skye C. Cleary argues that ignoring her won't do anything to challenge this.

"He treated me not as a freak, but as a person dealing with great difficulties." An Open Culture article looks at the friendship between Helen Keller and Mark Twain.

James Gent celebrates the 45th birthday of David Bowie's album Aladdin Sane by looking at the other artists who influenced it.

Six of the Best 730

"This video toolkit is intended to help you debunk dubious tweets. It was first developed in research by the Institute for Strategic Dialogue and the Arena Program at the London School of Economics to detect Russian social media influence during the German elections." Henk Van Ess shows us how to spot a bot.

Daniel Sugarman says the row about antisemitism is bad for the Labour Party and for everyone else.

"The contrast of metropolitan gangsterism with rural comfort has always made it an irresistible tale – it was a bit like a really lovely Welsh Breaking Bad." Joe Zadeh revisits the landscape of Operation Julie - Britain's largest ever drugs bust.

Ray King explains why you should visit Manchester Town Hall before it closes for renovation early next year.

Ruth Bernard Yeazell reviews a clutch of recent books on Jane Austen: ""hat appears on the new £10 bill is not an authentic image of Austen but a prettified, Victorian version first circulated by her nephew, James Edward Austen-Leigh."

You can listen to the 1976 Desert Island Discs appearance by Christopher Milne (Winnie the Pooh's Christopher Robin) on the BBC iPlayer. His choice of book is Bevis by Richard Jefferies.

Vince Cable confirms the Lib Dems still want to legalise cannabis

As Sir Vince is down with the kids, this report comes from the Newsbeat site:

Vince Cable says the Liberal Democrats will keep pushing for the legalisation of cannabis. 

The party's new leader believes it makes sense to "regulate and control the market" rather than let criminals "control the mixing of substances". ... 

Mr Cable believes "there are serious side effects from driving it underground". 

"You get toxic varieties like skunk that have the effect of creating psychotic disorders among their users," he told us. 

"Common sense would suggest that you should regulate and control the market rather than have free market anarchy." 

He adds that his policy "may not have been a great vote winner" but insists "it was commendable and sensible".

East coast villagers incensed by smell of marijuana cloud

The Times, paywall and all, wins our Headline of the Day Award, man.

The evidence behind the Lib Dem call to legalise cannabis

The Liberal Democrat call for a regulated market in cannabis this week has attracted more media interest than out policies normally do.

You can read the evidence behind this policy in the report A framework for a regulated market for cannabis in the UK: Recommendations from an expert panel.

That expert panel was made up of:

• Steve Rolles, Senior Policy Analyst, Transform Drug Policy Foundation (Chair)
• Mike Barton, Chief Constable, Durham Constabulary
• Niamh Eastwood, Executive Director, Release
• Tom Lloyd, Chair of the National Cannabis Coalition and former Chief Constable of Cambridgeshire Police
• Professor Fiona Measham, Professor of Criminology, Durham University
• Professor David Nutt, Founder of DrugScience and former Chair of the Advisory Committee on the Misuse of Drugs
• Professor Harry Sumnall, Professor of Substance Use, Centre for Public Health, Liverpool John Moores University

To give you a taste of the report:

The prohibition on cannabis production and supply: 

• Creates opportunities for criminal entrepreneurs, fuelling a vast and socially corrosive criminal market, associated with violence, people trafficking and slavery, including of children 

• Ensures that people who use cannabis have little or no information about the potency of the product they are consuming 

• Ensures people who use cannabis buy from potentially risky illicit markets that put them in contact with dealers of other more harmful drugs 

• Has progressively tilted the market towards more risky products (with higher THC and lower CBD) that are more profitable to the criminal entrepreneurs who control the trade 

• Has led to the rapid expansion of markets for more risky synthetic cannabis analogues (e.g. ‘spice’)