Constantly Furious: government by tabloid

One of the few areas in which this woeful government is consistent is their total, utter unwillingness to take advice, or even listen to ideas that differ from their own.

On any given issue, they'll create a panel of experts, pay them handsomely - with our money - then totally fucking ignore anything they say.

Like, say, the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs. This council has already lost 6 advisers, tired of being ignored or misrepresented, and today they've lost a seventh.

Eric Carlin has resigned, saying the council's decision taken earlier this week was "unduly based on media and political pressure".

Let's just pick through his resignation letter, shall we?

"I had hoped that my substantial experience of managing drug prevention and treatment services might help influence the committee, and thereby the government, to think about drugs as more of a public health issue rather than focussing narrowly on the criminal justice aspects. This has not been the case."

"I have grown increasingly disillusioned .. with the lack of attention paid .. by politicians and the media"

"At our meeting earlier this week .. there was no time for questions on the report due to the haste with which we were being pushed to make a decision about classifying Mephedrone; this so that .. you could do a round of press announcements."

"..we had little or no discussion about how our recommendation to classify this drug would be likely to impact on young people's behaviour.

"Our decision was unduly based on media and political pressure"

"The report was tabled to the whole council for the first time on Monday; the chair came to brief you before the whole council had even discussed all of the report. In fact, I still haven't seen the final version"

"As well as being extremely unhappy with how the ACMD operates, I am not prepared to continue to be part of a body which, as its main activity, works to facilitate the potential criminalisation of increasing numbers of young people."

Well, that's pretty fucking clear, eh?

Professor David Nutt, the first to leave the panel in 2009 - although he didn't resign, he was sacked by Alan Johnson for having an opinion - said he wasn't surprised by Mr Carlin's resignation:

"There's not been proper consideration given to the broader justice and political aspects of making a drug Class B and criminalising maybe tens of thousands of young people"