Pubdate: Wed, 22 Sept 1999 Source: Times, The (UK) Copyright: 1999 Times Newspapers Ltd Contact: http://www.the-times.co.uk/ Author: Jason Allardyce, Andrew Pierce and Gillian Harris MINISTER'S SON DIES OF DRUG OVERDOSE The 23-year-old son of the Cabinet Office Minister Ian McCartney was found dead by his mother yesterday after he took a heroin overdose. The body of Hugh McCartney was discovered at 10am yesterday in his two-room flat in a tenement block in a rundown area of the East End of Glasgow known as "shooting alley", where heroin is part of daily life. His mother Jean Murray, who was divorced from Mr McCartney, had made regular trips to the flat to plead with her son to give up drugs. One neighbour said: "She was around here nearly every day with her Yorkshire terriers trying to get him off the drugs. It's terrible round here with the amount of drugs. The people in these flats watch everything you do. The best thing you could do is demolish them with the people inside." Mr McCartney, 48, the MP for Makerfield, near Wigan, was called from a meeting of Labour's National Executive Committee at the party's Millbank headquarters yesterday to be told on the telephone about the death of his only son.He returned to the meeting in a clearly distressed state, broke down, and was comforted by John Prescott, the Deputy Prime Minister, a close friend. Tony Blair, who had left the meeting minutes earlier, last night sent his condolences. Mr McCartney suffered a mild stroke earlier this year when, as a Trade and Industry Minister, he was in charge of employment law reform. He is widely expected to be elevated to full Cabinet rank by the next election. Yesterday he flew to Glasgow to comfort his first wife, whom he married when he was 17. George Turnbull, 49, who lived close to Mr McCartney's pounds 119-a-month rented flat where he lived alone, said: "He seemed a decent enough guy to me and he never bothered anyone. He just kept himself to himself." - --- MAP posted-by: manemez j lovitto