Tories mired in drugs controversy

THE Tory leadership contest in Britain remained mired in a controversy over drugs last night, with one senior Tory claiming he was the victim of a “smear campaign”.

Meanwhile, leading contender David Cameron again side-stepped a challenge to state whether or not he used drugs during his university days after days of questioning over the issue.

The drugs controversy took a new twist after newspapers printed a picture of a youthful George Osborne with his arm around a woman described as a “cocaine-snorting hooker”.

The shadow chancellor - a close ally of Mr Cameron - denied taking drugs with Natalie Rowe. The News of the World and the Sunday Mirror reported that the 34-year-old, married father-of-two admitted he knew her, and acknowledged that one of his best friends fathered her child and became a drug addict.

Mr Osborne suggested that he was the victim of a “smear campaign” - although he did not expand on who he thought might be behind such an assault.

In a statement, the Tatton MP said: “The allegations are completely untrue, and dredging up a photo from when I was 22 years old is pretty desperate stuff.”

The Sunday Mirror named the same woman, Natalie Rowe, as Jennifer Shackleton, though it added that Mr Osborne would have known her as Nathalie.

She was already a convicted drug dealer and brothel keeper when she met Mr Osborne, it reported.