The question of whether the youthful-looking David Cameron has ever taken hard drugs has overshadowed the Tory leadership contest. With the first ballot of Conservative MPs being held today, STEPHEN LEWIS asks: does it really matter what our politicians got up to in their student days?

Tory leadership candidate David Cameron does not seem to have been harmed by the speculation over whether or not he took hard drugs as a student at Oxford - or by his refusal to answer the increasingly frantic media questioning about his past.

The 39-year-old Conservative frontbencher is, by most accounts, strongly tipped to cruise into the last two in the leadership battle - and many bookies are even making him favourite to become the next Tory leader.

The media feeding frenzy of the past few days was sparked initially by a question to a fringe meeting at the Tory party conference in Blackpool. Had Mr Cameron ever taken drugs? He had had a "typical student experience," Mr Cameron replied obliquely - adding later in a television interview: "I did lots of things before I came into politics which I shouldn't have done. We all did."

Since then, he has remained silent on the issue. He did reveal that a close family member had become a heroin addict. But on his own experiences, he has said no more than that everybody was allowed to "err and stray" in their past, and that he would not bow to a "media-driven agenda" to "dig into politicians' lives".

Mr Cameron's main rival for the Tory leadership, York-born David Davis, re-opened the drugs debate yesterday by publicly backing police moves to target middle-class cocaine users, saying it was "absolutely right" that they should be pursued.

But if it were intended as a way of subtly sticking the knife into Mr Cameron, it seems to have failed. Mr Davis was even drawn into defending his rival's right to remain silent.

"I think there should be a kind of moral statute of limitations when it comes to adolescence or student days," he said. "If something is a long way in your past, you can reasonably expect it to be forgotten."

But is he right? Should there be a "moral statute of limitations" over our politicians' past behaviour, and their experience or otherwise with drugs? We put our local MPs on the spot...

John Greenway, Conservative, Ryedale

Mr Cameron has "handled himself with tremendous dignity" in the face of some "quite squalid" tabloid interrogation, the 59-year-old former policeman turned Ryedale MP believes.

Most people of Mr Cameron's generation were involved in some "experimentation" in their teens and early 20s, Mr Greenway said; it was a "generational thing." But what the leadership contender did as a young man is not relevant to his ability to do his job today.

Mr Greenway does not believe Mr Cameron's refusal to answer the question has in any way undermined his credibility.

"The problem is that once you say 'ooh, yes, OK, I did experiment' they the media are relentless," he said. "He was absolutely right to say 'it is none of your business.' It doesn't matter, and the public will be able to make their own judgement about that."

The question was a legitimate one to ask, Mr Greenway conceded. But Mr Cameron had answered "in the way he felt was right". The questioning should now stop.

If anything, however, he said the controversy would have boosted Mr Cameron's popularity, especially among younger voters. "It has highlighted the fact that we as politicians have experienced precisely the same kind of pressures and experiences as they have," he said. "We are normal human beings."

And did Mr Greenway ever experiment with illegal substances himself as a young man? "I did not, no. Although I did have the dubious experience of being a policeman arresting people in the 1960s for having those substances."

John Grogan,

Labour, Selby

The 44-year-old Selby MP says he never experimented with drugs, but insists that what a politician did as a young adult shouldn't matter. "The quality of a politician cannot really be judged by what they did or did not do 20 years ago," he said. "It would be absurd to make a conclusive judgement about them based on that."

What an MP got up to once he or she was elected to office was a different matter, however. "You cannot be a law-maker and a law-breaker at the same time. That is why it is embarrassing if an MP is caught speeding. You do have to watch yourself.

"But the idea that what somebody did as a youth of 19 or 20 should damn them for life and make them unfit for office in later life - I don't think most reasonable people would think that was right."

Whether a politician had once experimented with drugs was a fair enough question for a journalist to ask, Mr Grogan said. "But you've got to accept the answer given. You've asked about me and I gave one answer. He's given another."

Phil Willis, Liberal Democrat, Harrogate

If anything, says the former headteacher, experience of having experimented with some form of illegal substance as a young man or woman might stand a politician in good stead later on.

Not that he ever did. "Categorically no. I'm from before that era. I'm 63 and it was a different world then."

But politicians who have real experience of grappling with the day-to-day problems and issues ordinary people have to face have a much better chance of understanding them.

"What really matters in public life is what you have learned during your own life. Do we really want sanitised people in public life who have no experience of what it is like to live?"

He has no problems with journalists questioning politicians about their past. "I think all questions are legitimate to ask politicians. I wouldn't want us to go down the French route, whereby people in the public eye are constantly protected from these sorts of questions." Mr Cameron, however, had every right to decline to answer the question, he added.

"I think he did the right thing, and he seems to have come out of it pretty well."

If an MP took hard drugs while in office, it would be a completely different matter, Mr Willis said. "There is no question that they would immediately have to consider their position."

Anne McIntosh, Conservative,

Vale of York

The former lawyer didn't want to be drawn on the question of politicians and drugs. "I think what matters is that we get the best leader for the job," the 51-year-old said. "I'm not even going to comment on drugs. I'm really bored by it. The media seem to be on a witch-hunt."

But surely it was a legitimate question to ask of someone who might one day be leader of the opposition, or even Prime Minister?

"Why not ask accountants, lawyers, other professionals?" Ms McIntosh said. "The media really should grow up."

It would be a different matter if an MP - or any other professional - were caught taking drugs in the workplace, she said. "But that's all I'm going to say about drugs."

And what about herself? Did she experiment with any interesting substances in her student years? "Anybody who knows me would know the answer to that!"

Hugh Bayley,

Labour, York

If somebody broke the law as a sitting MP, that would be a serious issue, the 53-year-old MP said. But while it was a legitimate question to ask, what someone did in their youth should not be that important.

What was important was that a politician should be honest when answering such questions. There was nobody who had not made a mistake at some time in their past, Mr Bayley said. "And I think most people would be tolerant as long as a politician is honest about the facts.

"I think generally speaking, the more open you are, the more tolerant people will be."

Mr Cameron would probably have served himself better if he had simply answered the question, however. "The issue would probably have died a death by now. Instead it has become an issue of what has he got to hide."

Mr Bayley tried cannabis as a student - though not hard drugs. There was a lot of peer pressure on young people to try cannabis in the early 1970s. "And you don't want to feel that you're not doing what everybody else is doing."

Today, he added, there was still peer pressure on young people to experiment with drugs. "And a lot of them are a great deal more dangerous." That, he said, was the real drugs issue that politicians should be concerned about.

Updated: 08:58 Tuesday, October 18, 2005