Vaz shames Parliament says Nick Ferrari
JUST when you thought they couldn’t get any more shameless.
There can scarcely be a time in history when our politicians have been held in such low esteem and given the ceaseless litany of revelations it is easy to understand why.
While it would be ludicrous to suggest each and every one of them is “at it”, on too many occasions our lawmakers have been exposed for the house-flipping, expenses cheating, scandal-loving, troughhogging, power-grabbing tawdry bunch that they are. One of their shamed number returned to a position of prominence last week.
Labour’s Keith Vaz was voted back on to a parliamentary committee that helps oversee the country’s justice policies.
This as he is facing two possible police inquiries and it was only a matter of weeks ago that he quit in disgrace. He was exposed by a newspaper for reportedly paying male prostitutes for sex, offering to pay for cocaine and asking them to bring poppers. There was no suggestion Vaz, 59, was to use the cocaine.
Our MPs are supposed to recognise the code of conduct that says they “should always behave with probity and integrity”.
Does it sound like Vaz was doing that when he was discussing possibly having sex with two male escorts and the possible purchase of Class A drugs at the time he was the chairman of a parliamentary committee that was preparing to examine the sex trade?
As if your jaw isn’t slack enough already at this news, let’s see how solid it will be after this. Unbelievably he only managed to scuttle back into place as Conservative MPs voted for him, including 11 members of the Cabinet.
Sadiq Khan: Keith Vaz has done the honourable thing
The argument was that a dangerous precedent could have been set with opposition to committee nominations and in future these appointments could become partisan battles. This convention serves only the party managers, not the people who both vote and pay for it all.
What utter cobblers! In the extremely unlikely event I had been involved in this sort of seedy affair that seems to have snared the oleaginous Vaz, I’d quite rightly be suspended from my radio show at LBC, expect the same treatment from Sky News and the show I feature on there, and imagine a fairly robust conversation with this newspaper’s editor.
Can there be any other job, trade or profession where you could have any reasonable expectation of being able to return to work while the police were investigating claims of possible illegality? To make the situation even more perverse he’ll now be in a position to scrutinise and help influence the nation’s laws. In any other walk of life you wouldn’t even be considered.
In the murky world of politics you get the job! Supporters of Vaz would probably point to the fact he won the vote but that was only forced by the smart action of Conservative MP Andrew Bridgen, who used legal privilege to release more details of the case.
He was prevented from releasing any further information as the Commons Speaker John Bercow decreed the matters were not “within the public domain”.
The next time compilers of dictionaries start their endeavours, they can save themselves a lot of time by simply putting the words “John Bercow” by the entry for pomposity.
After so many of their number were found to be cheating us out of cash to pay for anything and everything from floating duck houses to bath plugs, one of the many problems facing Parliament and this coarse crop of politicians is the perception they are a class apart.
They have absolutely no comprehension how we ordinary folk live our lives. They often seem to have little care either. These are people who enjoy a life of considerable privilege with a heap of generous allowances and expenses thrown in.
They might expect respect but that is a commodity that has to be earned, it cannot be demanded. Of course some MPs strive to steer clear of this foul-smelling charade but if they cannot all come together to punish those who abuse their position and break their own rules, the disgrace and despair will just go on.
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HOME SECRETARY Amber Rudd has rejected the possibility of an inquiry into the so-called “Battle of Orgreave,” which was the brutal confrontation between police and striking miners in 1984. Among her reasons for rejection were that police could learn little from any review of events so long ago, many of the witnesses are now dead and there were no fatalities in the clashes.
Sorry, but is this some new warped requirement for any inquiry: that someone has to have been killed? Or that everyone who could have played a role of importance is still alive? It rightly didn’t apply to the Hillsborough inquiry. Or Bloody Sunday.
While I’m not normally a fan of these long-running gab fests that earn lawyers telephone-number payments and miss deadlines by a country mile, there seems more than a possibility that innocent people here were “fitted up” and have had to contend with unjust criminal records ever since.
Surely the fact that South Yorkshire police are involved is enough to ensure a detailed investigation anyway. After all, Hillsborough, Sir Cliff Richard and Rotherham were all on their patch.
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IF YOU were concerned that those migrants who were forcibly evicted from the squalid Jungle camp of Calais, which they then merrily torched upon their departure, appeared to have dropped out of the news, fear not.
Gangs of them have been having pitched battles in Paris close to the Gare du Nord railway station, where the Eurostar arrives in the city. Great to see them respecting the safety and hospitality afforded to them by French taxpayers.
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HOW do you think the money should be spent? Justice Secretary Liz Truss has somehow managed to get her hands on £104million at these times of austerity and will recruit an extra 2,500 prison officers. This as the UK Statistics Authority report the police have faced a £160million cut in their funding and officer numbers in most forces have been cut.
So should the money go to assist those who have been convicted of crimes and are behind bars, or on protecting the safety and possessions of the law-abiding majority who pay for everything? Yup. Me too.
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THOUSANDS of migrants could be barred from entering the country if they’re found to have failed to pay the NHS for medical treatment they’ve already received on earlier visits.
This comes after a report last month by the National Audit Office that showed the NHS fails to collect half of the £500million a year that is owed by patients from overseas.
Dreary Lefties moaned this was discrimination. No it is not. It is simply asking everyone to abide by the rules and should be supported
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