If Bob Higgins abused anyone and there is evidence of that, he deserves punishment. If he did not and the only "proof" is the "recollections" and "allegations" of people, this is yet another travesty. Don't say "how can there be evidence all these years later?". That is not the point. If there is no evidence he should not be found guilty. If there is evidence, all well and good. I don't know the details; I was not on the jury; I did not attend the trial.

I am not minimising the crime. If true, it is quite revolting, and I havent followed the trial at all.

But... Why is Gove a "different person" to who he was twenty years snorting coke (as everyone says)
and not people who commit other crimes?
I'd have thought that either you change with time, or you dont?

For me the problem with Gove's past - and I couldn't give a monkeys if he took an illegal class A drug multiple times in the past - is that if he becomes PM he will preside over a Government that sees less priviliged individuals criminalised daily for possession of his once favoured drug.

He can be PM in my view despite this (should people think he would make a good PM...), but to have credibility he has to follow his "forced" admissions with a pledge to stop criminalising personal drug use, including class A.

Otherwise he is a hypocrite of the first order, and alas will have limited credibility with a red-eyed sniffing yoof standing in the dock at Staines magistrates' court facing his Government's retributive "justice"...