When will they admit they had a good time?

When it comes to the subject of drug taking in a politician's youth there are it seems standard responses. Either you'll get "I did once take a few puffs on a joint but I didn't like it", or "I did some stupid things when I was young which I now regret", or perhaps "I had a normal youth lets just leave at that". Whichever form of words is chosen by a given politician it will, at least it seems to be, that remorse, regret, and appeal for forgiveness of some sort will be the subtext of their statement and the question I have is why?

Why is it that if you're a politician you have to lie whilst bearing your soul about what you might have done with the intoxicating mind altering herb or chemical? After all, people take drugs for one reason and one reason only. They do it to get high. They do it to experience another state of consciousness disconnected from traditonal straight-laced existence, and the day after they don't regret doing it because they think it might have been a moral crime. They might regret it because the come down hurt in ways that make a hangover look tame, but they don't think 'oh I am such a deviant against society and need to show remorse or lest be punished'.

Yet fast-forward them a few years and put them on the political stage that is public life and they suddenly look back will much mournfulness to how they were naughty. Of course, they would argue that if they didn't act this way it could be intepretted as an endorsement to get out the bucket, cut a 2 litre lemonade bottle in half and find the tinfoil. They don't want to be seen to be 'sending the wrong message'. The problem is that the message they send out when they don't send the wrong message is "look at me, I have such a massive ego that I think that if I say I quite enjoyed taking ecstasy and gurning like a loony in Turnmills until 6am, all the kids will think it's ok for them to do it". At the same time the vast majority of people sit there and think "yeah.. right!"

The dishonesty that the politician displays when he or she describes their deep regret about having got wasted says a lot about their own sense of elevated importance and influence. It also informs us of how out of touch with society they have actually become that they think making such admissions without saying they feel awfully terrible about it will be a negetive thing. The truth is no one really cares if the Home Secretary toked 20 years ago. Most people wouldn't even care if a senior politician had been a crackhead decades before. What matters is whether they're doing their job now whilst off their trolly on something.

Perhaps one day a politician with a colourful narcotic abuse past will realise this and sit on a GMTV sofa and say "to be honest with you it would probably be quicker to tell you the drugs I haven't taken". Maybe one day one of them will actually publish photos of themselves in a field somewhere, whistle in mouth and bottle of Evian in hand, taking in the hardcore or jungle. Maybe one day it will happen, although with the rise of the political class and career machine politicians maybe it won't. If the day ever comes I will rejoice though, because if politicians want to represent ordinary people then they need to start being more ordinary themselves.