The Mail on Sunday claims to have the full story.

David Cameron narrowly avoided being expelled from Eton College when he was involved in the school's worst-ever drugs scandal, it has been revealed.

Police were called in and seven pupils were thrown out after boys were caught dealing in and smoking cannabis.

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The future Tory leader - who until now has refused to say if he took drugs - was caught after another pupil informed on him. Cameron, who at the time was just 15, was hauled in by the headmaster, who forced him to admit he had smoked cannabis.

The furious master punished him by putting him under the top public school's equivalent of house arrest by being 'gated'.

But this did not stop Cameron's drug- taking, according to a book to be serialised exclusively in The Mail on Sunday next month. It says he carried on smoking cannabis when he went to Oxford.

In case you are tempted to take all this seriously, check out this classic paragraph:

Parties of up to ten boys would gather in a room to listen to Bob Marley reggae records and smoke cannabis, said Press reports at the time. Cameron was a big fan of reggae band UB40, but there is no evidence he was at the Bob Marley dope parties.

Just as well young Etonians hadn't heard of Scratch Perry or Peter Tosh...

Most liberals will surely be relaxed about this - and Cameron will probably come to see it as good publicity (although it will focus attention on his privileged background).

But Lord Tebbit is not amused. According to the BBC Tebbit believes that

it would have been better for Mr Cameron to admit to taking cannabis when he was first asked about it during his campaign.

"On the whole I've always thought that it was better to be pretty honest about things because sooner or later the truth of the matter tends to come out and it's always better to have brought it out yourself rather than have somebody else bring it out."