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Boris Johnson is making an all-out attempt to move the headlines on. But all I can think about is last year’s alleged Downing Street Christmas partyIt’s a terrible thing, when you can hear a man sweat through the radio. The Home Office minister Kit Malthouse was being questioned by Mishal Husain on the Today programme this morning, about last year’s Downing Street Christmas party. If it was as described – two-score people at least, in the same room, drinking and playing party games – then how could it have been within the rules? “This is hypothetical,” Malthouse kept saying, as if he was tapping into an ancient interview woo-hoo, the magic word you could say to make it all stop. Unfortunately, he was not. Finally, he executed his handbrake turn: he couldn’t comment on the party, because he didn’t know what had happened; he couldn’t find out what had happened, because he was much more focused on the war on drugs.Mired in terrible headlines, one story of corruption or incompetence after another, each untoward event reminding the world of some past promise that never materialised, the prime minister has seized the agenda by the throat. He has a new enemy (drug dealers); a new feral underclass (drug takers); a new initiative (take away all their passports and driving licences); a new slogan (it’s a war on drugs); and a new load of old blarney. “Drugs … are not going to make you cooler,” Johnson said. “They’re bad news.” Not since Zammo’s rap has such an unarguable message had such a counterproductive messenger. Nothing has ever made me want to take drugs more than this wreck of a man telling me they’re bad news. And I’m writing this at nine in the morning.Zoe Williams is a Guardian columnist Continue reading...