Priti Patel - Not To Be Sniffed At

Proving that it is easier to play to the gallery than to actually do the day job, Priti Patel, who has inexplicably been appointed Home Secretary, has had a brilliant idea. Well, there was a brilliant flash of some kind; perhaps it was a short circuit. The idea played very well with our free and fearless press, and her fellow Tory MPs, until the thought entered that the idea had the capacity to come back and bite them in a very tender place indeed.

That idea is random workplace testing for Class A drugs. Including no doubt smack, snow, crack, acid, ecstasy, ice and many others. This initially got a positive write-up from the Murdoch Sun, which told “FIRMS could be forced to randomly test for Class A drugs in a bid to stamp out cocaine use by office staff. Home Secretary Priti Patel said demand from middle-class users fuelled county lines networks that use children as runners”.

There was more. “She said the Government would look at the nationwide implementation of proposals by Tory London mayoral candidate Shaun Bailey, who aims to blitz coke use in the capital. If elected, he would require firms with 250-plus staff to sign a drug-testing charter. Results would be published regularly to identify firms with most users. Ms Patel told The Sun: ‘I back any techniques that will reduce drug crime’”.

But then, to no surprise, the mood music changes. “THE ‘county lines’ gangs are a scourge Home Secretary Priti Patel is right to ­target. But forcing firms to drug-test staff is not a policy Tories should champion … It’s not just the extra burden and cost it loads on businesses, without any proof it would cut middle-class cocaine use. It’s that it’s another sinister assault on ordinary people’s freedoms”. Get that back-pedalling moving!

The mood then darkens. “This disturbing authoritarianism is the trademark of left-wing regimes. It is shocking to see Tories advocate it”. Should this surprise anyone? After all, the Sun article is headlined “END OF THE LINE”, it defaults to talking about cocaine, and seems to know an awful lot about sniffing the stuff. It is not hard to figure out why.

If firms with 250 or more employees had to test staff for Class A drugs, News UK, Associated Newspapers and other media players would be in deep doo-doo. Cocaine use among the media class is endemic. So is getting away with it (pace Toby Young). Had the drug testing been confined to less well off people who are not white, the Murdoch mafiosi would have cheered it to the rafters. But the thought of it snaring their own - no way.

Nor are Ms Patel’s Parliamentary colleagues (the Tories are the only party with more than 250 MPs) going to take kindly to such an idea. Former Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne’s past use of snow is well known, as are the occasions he turned up for PMQs looking just a little out of it. And then there is Michael “Oiky” Gove.

The man who would succeed alleged Prime Minister Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson is on record confessing to a past relationship with Charlie. He is unlikely to be alone in this endeavour. Bozo himself has admitted taking the stuff. Well, sort of.

All this shows is that Shaun Bailey is an appallingly bad choice as the Tories’ candidate for the London Mayoralty. Expect Ms Patel to bin this one. And sooner rather than later.

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