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Cannabis Campaigners' Guide News Database result:
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UK: Norman Baker quits as Home Office minister
BBC News Monday 03 Nov 2014 Mr Baker told the Independent that Home Secretary Theresa May saw the Lib Dems as a "cuckoo in the nest" and criticised the department in a letter to party leader Nick Clegg. The MP for Lewes was appointed to the Home Office in October 2013. Mr Clegg described him as a "brilliant minister". Mr Baker and Mrs May have clashed over drugs policy, with the Lib Dem recently calling for sweeping changes to the UK's approach following the publication of a Home Office report. BBC political correspondent Iain Watson said Mr Baker had been considering resigning for some time but had been persuaded to stay in post by Mr Clegg. In his resignation letter to his party leader, Mr Baker said being the only Lib Dem in the Home Office had been "particularly challenging". He said: "Despite these challenges, I am pleased with what I have been able to achieve, not least to have been the first minister with responsibility for drugs to have put prejudice aside and published an evidence-based approach to this important issue, despite repeated Conservative efforts to block release." Unlike in the Department for Transport, where he had previously been a minister, Mr Baker said that in the Home Office "the goodwill to work collegiately to take forward rational evidence-based policy has been in somewhat short supply". Mr Clegg wrote back: "However complex the issues have been, or challenging the coalition relations have proved to be, you have handled the political relationships within government with great skill, always focusing on how to achieve liberal reform wherever you can." http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-29891132
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