Editor-At-Large: Yes, Mr Dacre, I have taken ecstasy

 The other night I had a conversation with Paul Dacre, editor of that bastion of Middle England, the Daily Mail

The other night I had a conversation with Paul Dacre, editor of that bastion of Middle England, the Daily Mail. Mr Dacre is in despair, which is hardly a surprise. Two of his "rocks" (to coin an emblematic phrase) – the institutions of the Tory party and Royal Family, on which he relies to sell his papers in vast quantities – are in disarray.

Last week I wrote a comment piece for our sister paper, The Independent, pointing out the hypocrisy that exists within the television industry. As a former BBC executive and on-screen presenter I could understand both sides of the sorry Angus Deayton saga. Mr Deayton was sacked for being revealed as someone who indulges in cocaine and wild sex with more than one person at once – which many media executives not only indulge in, but turn a blind eye to. Mr Dacre had not only read my article (and tried to get me to write a version of it for his publication) but also demanded to know what Class A drugs I took on a regular basis.

No doubt someone at Associated Newspapers' HQ is compiling a dossier on my leisure activities, but surely it would be statistically unlikely that I would never have taken ecstasy or smoked dope. So, yes, dear readers, I have indulged in the odd E, and have no ill effects to report. Indeed, its main effect is to make me so unnaturally pleasant to all and sundry that many friends think it should be prescribed by my doctor on a regular basis.

Along with the fortunes of the Tories and the monarchy, the Daily Mail is obsessed with "wars". The drugs war, along with "youth out of control" and "gays taking over", is a regular theme. Hence Mr Dacre's question. But as Ben Elton points out so perceptively in his latest novel, High Society, the war on drugs is not only comprehensively lost but not even a battle worth engaging in. This weekend, up to a million people will be taking ecstasy, and, for all the effort to downgrade the severity of punishment for possessing cannabis and small amounts of E, not one person less has been persuaded not to take drugs. By doing so they not only engage in a criminal activity, but also feed money into a parallel economy run by criminals who profit from the current drug laws. Hypocrisy about drugs runs right through the treatment of Mr Deayton to the vilification of Commander Brian Paddick, the Metropolitan Police officer formerly in charge of London's Lambeth borough, who committed two crimes in the world of the Mail: one, to be a gay high-profile copper, and two, to voice the perfectly reasonable opinion that his officers could spend their time more profitably than endlessly arresting people for minor drug offences. Thanks to the Mail, Commander Paddick currently languishes in a kind of operational limbo, neither guilty nor innocent, but anyway unable to do a job he was clearly extremely very good at. Hypocrisy rules once more.

Ben's rational farce

In Ben Elton's roller-coaster romp, Labour MP Peter Paget proposes the decriminalisation of all drugs, from crack to cannabis, something Mr Elton himself thinks is not only a practical and sensible idea, but ultimately inevitable. It is the only way to guarantee quality, properly deal with addiction, and remove the criminal element from drug dealing, as drugs can be sold over the counter. Drugs can be taxed and be a source of government revenue. In other words, Mr Elton thinks we should treat drugs in the way that we treat something that is just as addictive and lethal: alcohol. This is his drug of choice, but he makes a compelling case for rethinking our approach to all drugs, abandoning the Class A and B categories and entering the real world, where, every weekend, people indulge in a cocktail of chemicals, regardless of how the Government regards their dangers.

Of course, High Society is a farce – it wouldn't be the work of Ben Elton otherwise – with a list of comic characters including an impossibly stupid junkie rock star, a luscious House of Commons secretary who proves to be the downfall of family man Paget, a tragic young Scottish prostitute, and a clutch of bent coppers taking kickbacks from dealers. At times they can seem one-dimensional, and any reader can see the happy ending coming a mile off. But for all that, High Society is a bloody good read, because it's based on such a rip–roaringly good premise. And Elton is the master of sniffing out hypocrisy in all its forms.

Novel servants

Mr Elton's previous novel, Dead Famous, focused on the vacuous world of television reality shows, such as Big Brother. Now that he's dealt with drugs, I'd suggest fresh territory to which he might profitably turn his attention. Servants. From Paul Burrell to Backstairs Billy, the Royal Family seems to have an extraordinary knack for picking the weirdest characters as its employees. But it's not just the aristocracy or pop stars who employ people to "do". In 21st-century Britain, as women have to cope with careers and families, and the length of the working day is increased by commu- ting, more of us than ever employ people to come into our homes and help. Not butlers, but cleaners, nannies, part-time secretaries and gardeners. And are any of us any better at knowing how to deal with them than Diana, Princess of Wales or the Queen?

True, we probably don't expect them to stand while we watch TV, or bring our favourite crockery and rugs into hospital while we're having a hys-terectomy or whatever, but we might expect them to do our washing and not blab. I once had a male housekeeper who sold his story to a women's magazine and the headline news seemed to be the fact that he used to have to wash my knickers. Luckily he fell off his clogs one day on the way to work and I had an excuse to pay him off. In modern Britain, the tortured relationship between boss and hired help seems the perfect follow-up to The Office, at the very least.

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The latest Radio Times has a supplement promoting BBC digital channels and in the section promoting BBC4 I find the amazing revelation: "....it's become the natural home for highbrow broadcasting squeezed out of the ratings-hungry mainstream channels". Given that the BBC's remit is to provide a range of programming across all its channels, not just ones that you can receive only on a £99 digital box, you have to admit this is real foot-in-mouth stuff. And with the recent announcement of the demise of the flagship arts series Omnibus on BBC1, to be replaced by a three-part series presented by Alan Yentob, can we now expect even fewer documentaries and cultural offerings on BBCs 1 and 2? BBC4's current schedule looks exactly like that of BBC2 five years ago.