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sweat at his armpits. He wished that he had worn a lighter-coloured shirt. He was experienced enough a politician to know that sweaty armpits were just the sort of thing that could blow an entire speech by securing more coverage than the issues under discussion. Although on this occasion such was the force of Peter’s performance that he could probably have stripped naked and still have the content of his speech properly reported. He had galvanized the emotions of the house in a manner not seen since the heady days of Mrs Thatcher.
    ‘I am not alone in my thinking, Madam Speaker. I can see that there are Honourable Members here today sitting on all sides of the house who see things as I do, although they’re scared to admit it. And let me tell you this: no less a figure than the senior policeman in my constituency, Commander Barry Leman, agrees with every word I’ve said. He has been my trusted adviser during the preparation of my bill and would be happy to appear before a parliamentary committee to offer a police perspective.’
    Madam Speaker observed that it was not for police officers, senior or otherwise, to invite themselves to address parliamentary committees. Madam Speaker wondered if Mr Paget was suggesting that Commander Leman represented the official view of the Metropolitan Police.
    ‘No, Madam Speaker, I suspect that he does not, just as my views do not represent the official line of my own party. Nonetheless, Commander Leman and I both believe passionately that it is the law that is killing officers in the drugs war! For the law refuses to acknowledge the patently obvious fact that the drugs war is lost! Yes, it is lost, Madam Speaker! Will this house persist for ever in its self-deception? Sufficient people take drugs to make life in this country and indeed the entire world an ever worsening misery. But only, Madam Speaker, only because they must buy them from criminals! We have lost the war! We are currently living under the yoke of a victorious army of occupation! An army of drug barons, gangsters, pushers, traffickers, murderers, petty thieves, prostitutes, muggers, corrupted officials and all the low lifes of a criminal economy, a vast world trade existing outside all law. Can not we, who sit in this house, this house, which is the mother of all parliaments, the proud cradle of democracy in the modern world, can we not once more give that world a lead? Have the courage to do the unthinkable! To do that which would in a single instant pull the rug from beneath ninety per cent of the criminals on this planet? Can we not move to legalize, legalize, mind, not decriminalize, all drugs?’
    Afterwards, in the lobby of the house, Peter Paget stood blinking in the light of his instant fame. His had been one of the great parliamentary debuts, for, despite his seventeen years of service, to all intents and purposes debut it had been. The kind of bravura, firecracker performance that weary lobby correspondents had thought had long since been consigned to the romance of history. By the end of his speech, as he himself had noted, Peter had without doubt begun to make a favourable impression on many of his colleagues, and his back had been slapped and his face snarled at in equal proportions. This is not to say that half of the Members of Parliament were going to vote for full legalization, but many were grateful to Peter for having the courage to raise the issues. Particularly since they all viewed his bill as career suicide. Nobody in recent years had sparked such instant and furious debate. Peter Paget was blinking in the limelight and as he smiled at the starstruck face of his parliamentary assistant he knew that he was finally above the radar.

THE LEMAN HOUSEHOLD, DALSTON
    T en minutes after Commander Barry Leman left the house the phone rang.
    ‘Hello, Leman residence.’
    ‘Mrs Leman?’
    ‘Yes. Who is this speaking?’
    ‘I’d like to speak to your husband.’
    ‘Who shall I say is calling?’
    ‘A