Labour was not too bad on sex. Gay rights, single parents, sex education, civil unions, AIDS treatments, STD education, general openness of discussion of sex issues, problems and possibilities. These all added up to a pretty positive development in the social environment. Chronic British uptight-ness, prejudice and repression were dealt with in social life and interaction, the arts and education. It made a Britain a better place to live in.
In contrast, the treatment of drugs was a classic opportunity lost; fear of every hysterical headline demanded a conservative response. Drug czars, the war on drugs and experts on the misuse of drugs sacked or resigned all played to the worst of Labour’s populism and PR directed policy responses. Alastair Campbell and Peter Mandelson orchestrated a mindless response to the drug problem, despite all the evidence that repression and prohibition was having little if any positive effect, and that the most dangerous thing about drugs were that they were illegal.