Paper Monitor
11:28 UK time, Monday, 12 February 2007
A service highlighting the riches of the daily press.
"Revelations" in the Sunday press that David Cameron smoked cannabis as a schoolboy have whipped up a storm of indifferent silence among politicians, with even sworn enemies such as the Home Secretary John Reid calling it a "so what?" moment.
It's an indication of the apparent chasm of concern that can exist between the media and the public:
• the former seeing it as a technical victory against the Tory leader who, thus far, has resorted to heavy innuendo – "there were things that I did in the past that I don't think I should talk about now that I'm a politician" – when asked whether he'd taken illegal drugs;
• the latter largely greeting the news with a collective shrug of the shoulders.
Given its almost imperceptible shockwaves on the Westminster Richter scale, what, if anything, can Monday's papers do to move the story on?
Barring a stiffly-worded commentary from the Sun's political editor, the paper plays it for laughs – mocking up a picture of Mr Cameron with a massive joint, and imagining some of the Latin lines that a young Cameron would have had to copy out for his punishment. "Me non oportet inhalare – I must not inhale"… you get the picture.
The Mirror weighs in with some predictable toff-bashing – "Absolutely spliffing" – and acknowledges that while cannabis smoking is no big deal, the wider issue is what else Cameron may have done but not admitted to.
The Mail, which one might assume has the most cause for outrage on this further erosion of standards in politics, is rather muted, adding little to Sunday's story and using its leader column to urge Cameron to be tougher on drug use today.
The 
