However, his government has this year rejected recommendations from the Police Foundation that certain drugs should be reclassified and penalties reduced.. The former prime minister John Major wants to take a break from politics and will turn down a peerage if it is offered to him when he stands down at the next general election. The former prime minister John Major wants to take a break from politics and will turn down a peerage if it is offered to him when he stands down at the next general election. Mr Major told a television interviewer yesterday he wanted to spend his time writing, doing voluntary work for charities and sport, as well as taking on new business activities.Since losing office in 1997 Mr Major has continued to sit as MP for Huntingdon but has spent an increasing amount of his time away from Westminster, acting instead as a director of the Mayflower automotive group and as adviser to two American corporations."I'm not at all sure that I wouldn't want a fire-break from politics," he told the BBC1 Breakfast With Frost programme."I don't think one ever says no for ever, but I think it is probably unlikely, rather than likely, that I would accept an offer - were it to come - to go into the House of Lords immediately on leaving Parliament. I think the answer would be 'No, I won't'."But Mr Major said he would be happy to help the Tory leader, William Hague, with the next general election battle, adding that he had received requests from Tory candidates to visit their constituencies during the election campaign.Mr Major's predecessor Margaret Thatcher accepted the title Baroness Thatcher shortly after leaving the Commons in 1992, while the Labour prime ministers Harold Wilson and Jim Callaghan were ennobled immediately after stepping down as MPs in 1983 and 1987 respectively.Harold Macmillan, another former Tory prime minister, declined a peerage on his retirement from the Commons in 1964 and waited 20 years before becoming the Earl of Stockton in 1984.. The Tories were in disarray last night after Ann Widdecombe's hardline drugs policy of on-the-spot fines for cannabis users was undermined, and to some extent ridiculed, by seven Shadow Cabinet members who admitted having smoked the drug. The Tories were in disarray last night after Ann Widdecombe's hardline drugs policy of on-the-spot fines for cannabis users was undermined, and to some extent ridiculed, by seven Shadow Cabinet members who admitted having smoked the drug. The confessions highlighted a rift between the "hard" and "soft" wings of the party with some senior figures accusing Miss Widdecombe and Michael Portillo of adopting the drug issue as a platform for a phantom leadership election. While Miss Widdecombe, the shadow Home Secretary, used her conference speech last week to announce her "zero tolerance" policy on drugs, Mr Portillo, the shadow Chancellor, used his to call for a new, "inclusive"Conservatism.The debate was extended yesterday when Charles Kennedy of the Liberal Democrats became the first party leader to call for cannabis to be decriminalised.Among the high-profile Tories who admitted using cannabis in their younger days were Francis Maude, shadow Foreign Secretary, Archie Norman, shadow Environment Secretary, and Lord Strathclyde, the party's leader in the House of Lords.
Peter Ainsworth, shadow Culture Secretary, Bernard Jenkin, shadow Transport Minister, David Willetts, shadow Social Security Secretary and Oliver Letwin, shadow Chief Secretary to the Treasury, also told the Mail on Sunday they had tried the drug.But one senior Conservative accused both Mr Portillo and Miss Widdecombe of allowing their followers to use the issue to highlight political differences between them. "They have done themselves quite a lot of damage," the former cabinet minister said last night. "Both are allowing their supporters to fight a leadership election which is not needed We have got a leader we have chosen, and he is doing well. I think you can control your supporters, and they should do so."Miss Widdecombe's plans for a "zero tolerance" policy on soft drugs and £100 on-the-spot fines for offenders looked certain to cause a dsipute at the next shadow cabinet meeting later this month. Some sources said her policy would probably be quietly ditched.Mr Ainsworth said in a BBC interview yesterday that he had tried cannabis on several occasions, but thought he was going to die when someone put amyl nitrate under his nose. "The effect that cannabis had on me was to make me feel mildly sick about four times in my life. I never owned it or bought it, but I was in places where it was going round, so I had a puff," he said.He hinted at irritation over the way Miss Widdecombe's policy had been announced.
Although William Hague and Michael Portillo were told in advance, other Shadow Cabinet members read about it in the press on the day of her speech."The policy needs to be looked at again and it needs to be discussed, and that would be a help, frankly, when making policy," Mr Ainsworth said.Mr Hague and Miss Widdecombe were among nine frontbenchers who denied ever having tried illegal drugs, while three, including Mr Portillo, did not answer. Two could not be contacted.Last night Miss Widdecombe said the admissions had not altered her stance on drugs "I am not interested in the past. I am only interested in the measures we need for the future," she said.However Lord Cranborne, the former Conservative leader in the House of Lords, said he thought cannabis should be decriminalised. He was backed by Charles Kennedy, who said the use of cannabis should be downgraded to a civil offence.. England's regions are to be given a £150m cash injection to tackle the North-South divide. England's regions are to be given a £150m cash injection to tackle the North-South divide. Stephen Byers, the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry, said that while there were deprived areas in all parts of the country, it was clear some regions were not fully sharing in the nation's prosperity. He said the money amounted to a "revolution" in Whitehall thinking and would make a real difference to people's lives.The money will be handed over to England's eight Regional Development Agencies, which will be given the freedom to decide how to spend it.