On 1 April 2000, Editor of The Spectator Boris Johnson shared his thoughts about the legal status of cannabis with ITN. He voiced concerns that the government was “out of touch” with ordinary people, pointing out that “perfectly respectable” and “good bourgeois types” enjoyed smoking a “spliff” when “sitting in of an evening”. He did not name the neighbours he was describing. Johnson’s attitude to cannabis legalisation changed some time between his interview in 2000 and his landslide election victory in 2019. When asked about cannabis legalisation in April 2021, Johnson’s press secretary Allegra Stratton replied that the Prime Minister had said “on many occasions” that illegal drugs “destroy lives”, and that Johnson had “absolutely no intention of legalising cannabis, which is a harmful substance.”
On 15 June 2023, a report by the Parliamentary Committee of Privileges found that Boris Johnson deliberately misled the House of Commons over the so-called “Partygate” scandal during his time in 10 Downing Street. The report found Johnson to have committed five acts of contempt of parliament, behaviour which the Privileges Committee described as unprecedented for a former prime minister.
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