Will our coke and dope PM hand over passport?

UK’s sense of humour shines through despite a challenging year as festive funnies competition winners are revealed

BORIS Johnson’s latest crackdown on drugs is a chaotic, incoherent and insincere jumble.

Other nations are ploughing on with measures that directly seek to help those addicted to drugs.

But Johnson’s rhetoric is still leaning heavily on a desire to see more people “banged up” and more bobbies on the beat and stopping the supply. He’s supposedly going to erase this “scourge on our society”.

In other words, another tired rehash of the failed “war on drugs” using the grossly outdated Misuse of Drugs Act as the cornerstone of a new crackdown.

In Scotland, there is widespread agreement that we should treat our soaring drug deaths crisis as a health emergency rather than a criminal justice problem.

Among those who work on the frontline saving lives the Boris plan will be met with consternation.

The Daily Record has led the way in helping to build that new concensus in Scotland – but Boris appears to be heading off in a completely different direction.

Naturally, Johnson promises to turn the screw on the gangsters making millions from the vile drug trade.

It’s all desperate, meaningless stuff and disappointing that it comes after Tories supposedly accepted that the focus should be on recovery, not punishment.

Smashing international drug gangs has been a top priority in policing for decades in any case – taking us right back to the birth of the Misuse of Drugs Act, 50 years ago.

Yet the problem has got worse and worse. Drug deaths are at a record level, madly out of control.

Johnson is shamelessly redoubling the UK’s phoney efforts to win the unwinnable War on Drugs, with virtually zero adaptations to benefit modern society.

In preparing this supposed “10 year plan” – the sixth drugs strategy in 23 years – the Tories had the perfect opportunity to take pause and trial modern strategies.

Johnson could very easily have accepted that Drug Consumption Rooms, successful in many advanced nations, can be piloted in the UK.

They are about to be introduced in New York. They’re no longer even controversial in much of the developed world.

He could have backed Scotland’s Lord Advocate, who is seeking to make progress in the real world, moving away from automatic criminal records for minor drug possession.

More than 30 countries, with less severe drug problems than ours, have made similar moves towards decriminalisation in recent years.

But the Tories are determined to pursue their own reality.

Everything, as always, leads back to punishing those taking drugs.

There is talk of treatment and recovery thrown in as a fleeting aside. (If only it were so easy as inviting 300,000 heroin users into rehab to cure them of criminal inclinations).

Boris Johnson specifically targets the “lifestyle drug users”, those who hold down ordinary jobs. He reckons he’ll be able to successfully introduce a legal way of confiscating their cars and passports – hugely stigmatising them.

As a self-confessed former cannabis and cocaine user, will Boris Johnson be volunteering to hand over his own passport?

Well, plainly not, as the rules he wishes to apply to the rest of society don’t ever apply to himself or his mates.

Johnson & Co aren’t putting true priority on stopping drug deaths, which is the real crisis that underpins this latest strategy.

Their immediate concern is maintaining electoral support.

That’s why the drugs White Paper is jam-packed with the same old soundbites that appeal to Middle England voters, many of whom live in terror of crime.

And that’s why there’s little reference to new initiatives and no focus on housing people in recovery.

There is also scant attention paid to the inevitability of people taking drugs and the fact many of them desperately need ongoing, long term help to get lives back on track.

In almost every instance, this Tory Government talks of drug policy in the same breath as fighting crime, instead of moving addiction into the field of health.

And that’s why this strategy is doomed to fail.

Everything leads to punishing those who take drugs MARK MCGIVERN ON BORIS’S TIRED TACTICS

Not every Christmas cracker joke has to make you groan like you’ve eaten far too many Brussels sprouts.

Actually giving us a chuckle amongst the cheese, UKTV channel Gold’s annual festive competition has revealed it’s top 20 best topical Christmas cracker gags – created by the British public and voted for by the British public.

A festive joke about the rising cost of fuel has been revealed as the winner for 2021. Craig Rogers from Manchester, received the top prize of £1500 towards a holiday, a festive hamper and a box of bespoke Gold Christmas Crackers, one of which will contain his own winning gag:

Why are people cutting back on Brussels sprouts this Christmas? The cost of gas is too high!

Other topical stories from the past 12 months have been used as material for the top festive funnies, including Covid vaccines and testing, the Friends reunion, the lack of HGV drivers and popular Netflix series Squid Game.

Comedy critic Bruce Dessau, who led the Gold judging panel, said: “The British public’s fantastic sense of humour never ceases to amaze me!”

Now in its ninth year, the competition once again challenged entrants to come up with the best topical and modern Christmas cracker jokes, which were then voted for by the public to determine the winners.

Gold challenged the British public to tweet original festive gags to enter the competition. Entries were shortlisted by a panel of judges and put to an anonymous public vote of 2000 British adults to reveal the winning jokes.

Gerald Casey, Gold channel director, said: “It is heartening the British public can reflect on this year in a humorous way.”