Alan Johnson has rejected Evan Harris’s claim that he misled MPs in his statement over the sacking of government drugs adviser Professor David Nutt.
From the Guardian:
Johnson conceded that the Home Office and secretariat for the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs had been warned in advance about a paper published by Nutt in an academic journal in January and a presentation he later gave at King’s College London. Johnson cited the paper and the speech when explaining his decision to sack Nutt as chairman of the advisory council. Harris said Johnson was wrong to suggest Nutt was launching an unauthorised campaign against government policy. Johnson replied that although the Home Office knew about the article, he was not told the presentation would be published three months later by the Centre for Crime and Justice Studies.
Harris said Johnson had “confused the two roles” of a full-time adviser within the civil service and Nutt’s “unpaid, part-time” advisory role. Johnson replied: “He was chair of my advisory committee and chose to campaign against decisions my predecessor had taken.”
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The danger is that we will get more crass articles like this one:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-1224858/Yes-scientists-good-But-country-run-arrogant-gods-certainty-truly-hell-earth.html
Yes, scientists do much good. But a country run by these arrogant gods of certainty would truly be hell on earth
The end quote by the way is from the article – it is not mine!!
I predict that the Mail will continue to publish crass, insane articles.
(Empirical evidence is not from the real world? Somebody buy that guy a dictionary)
FYI, Evan Harris’ letter is here: http://markreckons.blogspot.com/2009/11/evan-harris-accuses-alan-johnson-of.html
Yet another disgraceful performance by Alan Johnson. The ACMD is not “his” advisory committee, but a body set up by the Misuse of Drugs Act 1974 to provide independent, scientific advice on the harm caused by drugs. If Mr Johnson wants to make it into “his” committee he should rename it the ACAAJ: the Advisory Council for Agreeing with Alan Johnson. And if he was unhappy that the presentation would be published why did he let the original talk be publicised on “his” website?
The Guardian says “The home secretary rebutted claims made in a letter from the Lib Dem science spokesman Evan Harris of several apparent factual errors in the statement Johnson made to the Commons about Nutt’s dismissal last week.” He has not rebutted anything! He didn’t even answer most of Dr Harris’ points. I wish he would stop trying to use dishonesty to get himself out of a hole.
Alan Johnson rejecting factual evidence?
Who’d have thought it…
This will be the first test of the new Speaker Bercow and whether he supports Parliament holding Government ministers to account.
So will Bercow arrange for Alan Johnson to come to Parliament to apologise explain the discrepancies pointed out in the letter by Evan Harris.
Pity someone did not say “ONLY THE LIBERAL DEMOCRATS have the policies on drugs which take account of scientific evidence AND their social implications”. Or perhaps they did and I missed it.
On that Mail article – not forgetting a certain research chemist who ended up doing quite well, of course?! Surely not.