Tory hypocrites a bad example for all our kids
SO here we are as parents, reminding our kids to just say no.
And there they are, politicians hell bent on insisting drugs don’t matter. That breaking the law doesn’t matter. That Class A substances are no barrier to achieving your goals.
Nothing should surprise us about a ruling party within which hypocrisy is almost a trend.
Elected to high office, they vow to be tough on crime. Tough on the causes of crime.
With so many, it is a different story in private and they escape the kind of thing for which you or I would get done. While he was Justice Secretary, Michael Gove championed laws that disproportionately punished people from less privileged backgrounds to his.
He and his indifferent supporters now believe his own cocaine use is an issue from which we must now move on – as Boris Johnson did after his cocaine admission over a decade ago. Ditto Jeremy Hunt, Andrea Leadsom, Esther McVey, Matt Hancock and Dominic Raab (cannabis) and Rory Stewart (opium). Tell that to the parents working hard to guide their children towards choices that will give them a chance in life. To the parents across the country striving to preserve their kids’ safety and mental health.
Tell it to the innocent victims of the violent crime fuelling the drugs lifestyles of the (upper) middle-classes.
Or to the ordinary people unable to move on from being criminalised and stigmatised for the very thing Gove got away with. Or to young teachers he believes should be barred for life if they take cocaine while he, having done it repeatedly at 30, reckons he is suitable to become Prime Minister.
What about London’s black population? Four times as likely to be stopped, searched and racially profiled according to official figures for the year 2017-18.
For so many working class people it is the kind of treatment they’ve become used to. As parents, the past week’s hypocrisy is a reminder that the onus is on us to protect our kids.
‘‘ Gove believes his cocaine use is an issue from which we must move on