Exactly what kinds of legal changes do those in favour of drug policy reform advocate?

Broadly there are two changes to the law that reformers advocate. Decriminalisation would remove criminal sanctions for possessing small quantities of illegal drugs for personal consumption. Instead of facing prison or a fine and having a criminal record which might harm their employment prospects, drug users might instead face an administrative sanction which involves going before a panel which assesses the individual’s need for treatment, deliucation and refers them on to other services where necessary. Many drug policy reform advocates want to go further and bring the manufacture, distribution and supply of currently illegal drugs under government control and regulation. Advocates of regulation rightly point out that it is rather nonsensical to regard drug use as primarily a health issue that does not require punishment (as decriminalisation implies), while leaving control of manufacture, distribution, supply and marketing in the hands of organised criminals. They argue that safeguarding public health and security, as well as savings in policing and criminal justice, is far more achievable if the government were to take control of the drug market.

Where have drug laws been liberalised recently?

 I dislike the word liberalisation to describe recent drug policy innovations. ‘Liberalisation’ suggests a culture of permissiveness and a lack of appreciation of the dangers of drug use. I see the reforms that have been successful in other countries as much more ‘tough on drugs’ than current policies in Britain, as they are more effectively restricting the ability of drugs to do harm. Portugal have pioneered the decriminalisation approach that I describe above. Switzerland have pioneered heroin-assisted treatment clinics where addicts receive pharmaceutical heroin under medical supervision. Both of these approaches are being adopted elsewherein Europe, and decriminalisation is becoming fairly widespread in Latin America.

What were the results of more liberal policies in those cases?

In Portugal the surge in drug use that some had predicted did not come to pass. Indeed, numbers in treatment doubled, injecting drug use reduced substantially, transmission of HIV in drug users dropped, and the prison population reduced by one sixth. In Switzerland, and all other countries where heroin-assisted treatment has been trialled, the individuals receiving heroin in clinics have seen great health benefits, massively reduced their use of street heroin, the amount of crime they commit and the funding they provide to organised crime. The reforms in both Portugal and Switzerland have proved very popular with the public and politicians too.

How likely is reform in the UK within the foreseeable future?

The Liberal Democrats have just adopted as policy a commitment to an independent review of current policy and a consideration of the decriminalisation and legal regulation alternatives. I hope that our coalition partners will recognise that we can’t afford to persist with very expensive policies which are not working, and that this review is urgently necessary. Growing numbers of important British and international figures have called for reform in recent years, but seemingly not yet enough to blow away the political cowardice that still holds back those with the power to make things happen.

Each summer Oxford students, after enduring a soporiphic hibernation period amongst our dear dreaming spires (otherwise known as the academic year), burst forth to wreak havoc on the wide and exciting world, and it is the duty of Cherwell to chart, at the beginning of Michaelmas term, the various misguided paths our readers take year after year. In the optimistic days of the20s, free of politically correct inhibitions and fears of appearing overly bourgeois, one writer waxed lyrical of his experiences on ‘the romantic streets of Sevilla, on the borders of enchanted Italian lakes, on the Alps, even in the streets of Lyons at four in the morning, when moments of bliss or preoccupation have been suddenly shattered by the sound of a blatant Anglo-Saxon ‘Cheerio”.

By 1969 the NUS was being lauded by Cherwell for its travel scheme, which made summer vacations of all manners both affordable and easy to organise. We excitedly heralded the option of ‘£55 for 3 weeks in the Soviet Union with everything paid for except your vodka & cigarettes’. Between Ryanair, Malia and Ouzo, precious little seems to have changed in the desires of the travelling student.

A drink and a smoke have always been top priorities for Oxonians, with our purpotedly secret, reputedly hedonistic dining societies often cropping up in the news in less than favourable circumstances. In 1982, we told you how ‘members of an elitist university dining club, the Assassins, caused £560 worth of damage to a Thame restaurant, telling police it was part of a good night’s fun’. A similar incident in 1987 may come to mind.

I must warn you, don’t think you’re free from the clutches of the University Proctors, even when the sun comes out for the summer. After the 1967 summer of love we reported how, ‘in a massive purge on drug-taking, the Proctors swooped during the vacation on seven first year undergraduates. Six students, including two St. Hughs girls, have been rusticated for a year. The seventh has left for good’.

Scandal continued that summer with OUDS accepting the invitation for an all expenses paid VIP performance tour courtesy of the Greek military junta. After student outrage surfaced, one young thesp retorted, ‘We are artists, not politicians. We just wanted to put on a good show’.

Week after week, year after year, Cherwell has brought you the best on ‘theatre, music, Union, sport & all the other features’. We start the new academic year in high spirits. We’re still the same old Cherwell, and this is the same old Oxford.

The rich, famous, interesting and powerful contact Cherwell all the time, desperate to grace our pages with their presence. Well, that’s not strictly true. From time to time our vacation bombardment of various PR firms does pay off, but there are still some weeks where you end up chatting to a retired politician, sitting up self consciously straight whilst inwardly cringing, and rather like a bad first date wishing there was someone sparkly and dynamic in front of you.

So it was a rather pleasant surprise to get an email from Mansfield College asking to set up an interview. Baroness Helena Kennedy, QC, is technically an Oxford newbie – she asks me about “noughth week” and “plodge” – but she’s definitely not out of her depth.

Kennedy is an immensely impressive woman: it’s hard to believe one person can be so active in so many areas of public life. Human rights lawyer. Labour Peer. Chair of the Power Commission and Charter 88. Advisor to the World Bank Institute, chair and patron of dozens of charities (including her own), current affairs broadcaster – it goes on. Just reading her CV makes me feel tired.

Cross examining a QC is a daunting prospect. As is meeting a college Principal. Yet Kennedy is surprisingly easy to talk to – I’m immediately struck by how human she is. Her strong Glasgow accent and warm, direct gaze usher me straight from the office to the Principal’s lodgings for a cup of tea; she rather naturally takes over the conversation with the air of those who are used to their own authority.

‘I don’t think it’s a secret that Mansfield approached me for the position of Principal. It’s not the first time Oxbridge colleges have asked me to come on board but it is the first time it has fitted with the other parts of my life. I think there is a tide which is turning in the right direction and that’s why it is good for me to be here now.”

It’s odd to see someone usually pictured behind podiums or commanding Parliament busying herself around the kitchen in such a normal way. The beautiful house is still pretty bare, with cardboard moving boxes lining the walls. It has an air of expectancy. Why is she here? The freak October sunshine pours into the near empty room; Kennedy’s lime green dress seems suitably vibrant. It’s autumn, but it feels like spring – and at the start of the academic year, maybe it’s a pathetic fallacy. Kennedy certainly thinks so. “There’s a different cohort of people coming to be heads of house at Oxford. People like Will Hutton at Hertford, Hermione Lee, Mark Damazer – it’s a rather interesting spectrum of people.

‘Tim Gardam at St Anne’s was the first. This is a new generation, with very different views and experiences of things than the last generation of Principals, perhaps.”

The higher education sector doesn’t seem to me to be the rosiest place to be at the moment. But the smoothness of her voice, disciplined by years spent at the bar and with the BBC, has a self-assured tone, and I’m inclined to trust her. She says she sees herself as part of the early seventies generation – the original student activists. “Well, we’re not radicals. Maybe every so often there are always new waves, but I do think my appointment is indicative of change already happening.”

Kennedy, rather refreshingly, doesn’t downplay her achievement. She’s articulate and direct. “It’s important to feel OK about the person who looks back at you in the mirror,” she says, matter of factly. “Because of that, I’m a person who has been at the forefront of quite a lot of change and challenges to institutions.”

As a member of the House of Lords and QC you could say she’s definitely part of the system – but she’s not afraid of dissent. Kennedy has voted against her party more than any other Labour Peer; more than once she describes herself as doing ‘battle’ with government.

‘I’m afraid I wear it as a badge of honour. I know I was put into the House of Lords because I’m a human rights lawyer. One of them said to me, ‘we like your brand’, and I wanted to throw up on the carpet.

‘They liked my profile, the fact that I champion the disadvantaged. They wanted to harness that, but I couldn’t not vote against doing away with trial by jury, extending detentions without trial, all the civil liberties Blunkett was so happy to sign away.” She says that Mansfield, traditionally a college of nonconformists and dissenters, appealed for that very reason.

Kennedy does seem happy to be here. This is a woman who has a tendency to achieve what she sets her mind to; does she have an Oxford agenda?

Kennedy smiles wryly. Her chunky bangles clink as she puts her elbows on the table. “I like outcomes. This could be a challenge. I find that there’s something very satisfactory about completion – as a trial lawyer, that’s getting the verdict you fight for. When I chaired the Human Genetics Commission and the British Council I learned that it’s pointless sitting back. I brace myself.

‘The core of my life is about justice. Justice and law. I’ve never had a narrow view of what that means – you can only talk about legal justice if you have a strong sense of social justice too. You can’t deliver one without contemplation of the other. I’ve always done other things to make me a better lawyer.

‘It was education that changed my own life. The Helena Kennedy Foundation tries, I mean really tries, to open up education again for people who have been failed by the education system or their personal circumstances… And I think places like this, who do so much for access and outreach work, deserve advocates too.”

Kennedy has so much energy the space around her is electric; it’s exciting to imagine the effect she could have here, revitalising a student body jaded by cuts and fees and a government which ignores us.

She once said that voting is pointless; she tells me that no government will satisfy people. Yet Kennedy’s confidence in her ability to work within the system’s limits seems inexhaustible. She’s a positive person.

‘Yes, I am actually, that’s true. It’s other people. I see so much good stuff.” Even in court? In rape and unlawful detainment and terrorism cases? “Yes. I’m always amazed by the emotional resources of the people I meet, the people I defend.”

She speaks of a new wave at Oxford, and the metaphor is appropriate. I can’t imagine anyone more capable at the helm of a college; it’s a dark sea, but if anyone can navigate it, she can.

Conferences are unparalleled opportunities for political parties to seize the headlines. However, this temptation has an ugly side. Politicians can lust after these headlines so much that they sacrifice their integrity and risk the public’s trust. 

The Labour conference succumbed to this. The opening announcement pledging to lower tuition fees to £6,000 set the tone. This policy was designed to grab headlines, but little else, since numerous observers pointed out such a policy would make no difference to the repayments of the poorest graduates. Instead it would typically benefit graduates aged 50 earning more than £72,000 a year. Defending this policy on the basis it would encourage more poor students to go to university in the first place seems flawed, especially when Labour has contributed so much to the confusion around tuition fees.

Ed Balls’ comments were also full of headline goodies. However, his big ‘five point plan’ failed to address its £20bn price tag. The purity of this announcement was also questionable since Balls said Labour wouldn’t be able to reverse all coalition cuts, a convenient way of not following through on unrealistic stands against cuts and for economic stimuli.

Similarly Ed Miliband’s speech contained plenty of cynical attention grabbing. His pledge to treat ‘good’ and ‘bad’ businesses differently seemed like a good idea to some and the beginning of Hayek’s Road to Serfdom to others. Regardless, whenever anyone actually asked what made a business good or bad no criteria were offered.

Even 16 year old Rory Weal’s speech was a gimmick, especially when it emerged that he was economical with the truth about his background. Notably his claim that he needed the EMA was dubious when he’s currently living in a £300,000 house. Overall the conference was an ill-judged attempt to grab headlines at the expense of integrity. This shows how far Labour has to go if it wants to be trusted as a responsible party again. In contrast I commend the Liberal Democrat conference for being unrelentingly dull. It was a conference devoid of big announcements. Only a couple of modest policies were unveiled. Even Nick Clegg’s speech focused on explaining his political philosophy rather than grandstanding.

It was so dull that journalists desperately attempted to whip up some controversy with baseless claims of unease in the coalition. Andrew Neil even argued with Vince Cable about chimney sweeps in his interview for lack of any other controversy. It seems the conferences where the Liberal Democrats would make big and sketchily funded policy announcements are over. This is a sensible road back towards the public’s trust.

In short, Labour used their conference cynically. Grandstanding and impossible promises are exactly what lead the public to distrust politicians. We should condemn Labour for using their conference to grab the headlines at the expense of integrity and prudence – two things they’ll need if they want to regain the government and the public’s trust in politics. In contrast we should applaud the Liberal Democrats for their sobriety. They’ve learnt their lesson regarding unrealistic promises. 

The newspaper industry has been dying for a long time now, and everybody knows it. Everybody, apparently, except some members of the industry itself. Whilst the reasons behind said demise are undoubtedly diverse and intricate, a predominant cause is the web, and it is here that the industry has, shockingly, done its best to kill itself. It has given away its content online for free since day one, and when The Atlantic wrote an article pointing out this trend, warning of the future and even entertaining the eventual fall of the New York Times, the media’s reaction was hostile and dismissive. Page One seems to want to remind us of the fragility of the financial situation, but it doesn’t bother to bore us by wheeling out the numbers and emphasising the economics. The focus is instead on why – if the decline of the newspaper does continue, this would be a tragedy of revolutionary proportions first and foremost for democracy.

With the arrival of Twitter, Wikileaks, blogs and the web more generally it is easier than ever to distribute vital political information, and the temptation is high to casually conclude from this that the paper as a news source is increasingly being rendered obsolete. Where the industry itself commits the fallacy of thinking because newspapers shouldn’t die, they won’t, some make an even worse argument and suggest that they should fall because they are no longer needed. If there’s an intention to be identified that lies behind Page One’s variety of narrative arcs, it’s definitely a commitment to dispelling this dangerous myth once and for all. It may be the case that with the rise of the tablet computer newspapers will vanish, but this isn’t to say that the producers behind the traditional papers should or will also evaporate as news sources. 140 character tweets may be great, but imagine Twitter without links to lengthier, justificatory articles. Wikileaks may be able to share 150,000 cables without the need for a publisher playing middle man, but there’s little chance that the general public would be capable of digesting this heap of information were it not for the help of The New York Times and The Guardian.

And this is where the documentary’s real lesson lies: for all the changes that the media undergoes, one thing that cannot ever be altered is the fact that serious, salient journalism requires intensive investigations that are carried out by experts. We cannot possibly understand the Afghan situation on the ground without reporters actually flying out there, and whether such an operation is profitable or not, it is the likes of the New York Times that continues to set the agenda, to create the news. Page One‘s message is that without their work, our work as citizens is made impossible through an unacceptable lack of information.

I’m not sure how to consider the film stylistically, because with all due respect to the filmmakers and any artistic intentions they might have, they must know that it is the substance of their work that matters here. They don’t want you to leave praising the documentary. They want you to leave praising serious newspapers. It’s no exaggeration to say they are as crucial to the defence of liberty as the US Constitution. The best we can do is to keep on buying them, and hope the likes of Mr. Murdoch continue to kindly run these great institutions through cross-subsidisation. The future may be not-for-profit, but to see Page One is to see that money shouldn’t matter.