Keith Vaz is one of the most slippery, untrustworthy and two-faced members of Parliament Britain has ever had. He’s been the sort of guy who if they told you it was raining outside then you’d feel it necessary to check to see if he was telling the truth. His record of dodginess goes back decades. He is alleged to have simultaneously given words of support to the author Salman Rushdie whilst also helping to whip up violent Muslims into a frenzy over the book Satanic Verses. He’s been implicated in passport and financial scandals and not for nothing has be been nicknamed ‘Vaz-eline’ because of his slipperiness.

Although Vaz, who gained most of his promotions during the damaging Blair years, fell from ministerial office following the scandal where he was involved in a ‘cash for passports’ scandal involving the Indian business magnates the Hinduja brothers, he’s still kept his seat and his influence.  ‘Teflon Vaz’ managed to crawl back from the slime pit of his own making and ended up becoming the chair of influential House of Commons committees, something he should have been discretely kept away from.

For years people, both journalists and independent researchers have tried to pin things on Vaz but their allegations have easily slid off the man best described as ‘oleaginous’. Now at last Vaz has been ‘got’ by the Sunday Mirror in what looks like a classic tabloid sting.

According to the Mirror Vaz has, despite his public image as a family man, been caught out indulging in unprotected and drug fuelled sex with male prostitutes. This sting could not happen to a more justifiable target. Here’s a short sample of the Mirror’s piece.

The Mirror said:

He (Vaz) is one of the most influential MPs in the House of Commons and is currently overseeing the biggest shake-up of Britain’s prostitution laws in a generation.

But today the Sunday Mirror can reveal Keith Vaz, a married father of two , is leading a double life paying young male escorts for sex.

Mr Vaz last met two Eastern European prostitutes eight days ago, even though he is chair of a powerful parliamentary group probing vice and drugs.

And as the talk ranged from sex to pets, Mr Vaz eventually said: “We need to get this party started.”

He also spoke about having had unprotected sex.

And ahead of the meeting he had sent a series of texts in which he jokingly called himself one of the men’s “pimp” and “bank manager”.

Mr Vaz paid the escorts in cash.

Money was also paid into a bank account used by one of them by a man linked to a charity set up by the MP.

Read the rest of this excellent story here:

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/married-mp-keith-vaz-tells-8763805

I hope that the Mirror has at last done what so many other publications and researchers have failed to do, which is finish this slippery character’s political career for good. This race card player extraordinaire, this two faced political Judas who cannot be trusted to betray any cause he is attached to, is a wholly justified target for this sort of reporting. Personally I don’t care whether Vaz is gay, straight or bisexual, but I do care that people of such questionable morals and actions, both political and personal, play such a large part in Britain’s public life.

This case shows just why Britain needs a free press and why those, such as the Tell Mama and Hacked Off organisations need to be fought tooth and nail on the matter of freedom of the press.

Well done Sunday Mirror, I may not agree with your newspaper’s politics, but this is brilliant journalism aimed at the correct target. Let’s hope that ‘Vaz-eline’ cannot slip or sue his way out of this one

Links

Sunday Mirror story on Vaz

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/married-mp-keith-vaz-tells-8763805

Labour Uncut on the slippery Vaz

http://labour-uncut.co.uk/2011/08/23/the-second-life-of-keith-vaz/

The Hinduja passport scandal

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/1137974.stm