He waddled in, as if it was any quiet Monday
KEITH Vaz (Lab, Leicester E) came purring into the Commons yesterday soon after Parliament reopened for business. You or I, if depicted by a national Sunday newspaper cavorting with male prostitutes amid recorded chat of drugs and implausible aliases, might seek the nearest bucket of sand in which to plunge our heads.
Not so the viscous Vaz. He did not get where he is today by succumbing to an undue or even basic sense of shame, thank you very much. Water off a duck’s oily back, dear hearts. And so he came waddling into the House just after 2.30pm, for all the world as though it was just another quiet Monday afternoon in early September. So breezy. So bare-faced.
Astonishing? The untutored might think so. The voters of Britain, certainly Leicester, might automatically assume that the disgraced Vaz would find it impossible to carry on as usual. Those of us who have watched Vaz over the years were less surprised. He is a modern-day Captain Brazen. He does not do self-doubt.
The House did not like it. His arrival caused a stir of unease, a shifting, dare one say, of buttocks. Mr Vaz plonked himself down in a little knot of Labour backbenchers. A couple of them gulped. One was Stephen Pound (Lab, Ealing N), an admirable Roman Catholic who takes his faith undiluted. I cannot say for sure what went through Mr Pound’s mind as Vaz straightened his tie and then placed his plump and sticky fingers in his own lap but I imagine Mr Pound felt a faint queasiness around the gills, as can occur when a man has snaffled a bad prawn.
NOR did Jenny Chapman (Lab, Darlington) look too joyful as she and Scunthorpe’s Nic Dakin – both of them from the honourable end of the Parliamentary Labour Party – found themselves having to make conversation with the buttery star of the Sunday Mirror’s revolting front page. Perfunctory conversation was made. No more than that. What on earth can one say to a bloke in such circumstances? ‘Oh, hello, Vaz, had a good break? Been away? Get up to anything interesting?’
Home Office Questions was unfolding. Mr Vaz rose to ask Home Secretary Amber Rudd about some detailed matter touching on anti-terrorism. The House fell utterly silent after Speaker Bercow saw fit to call Vaz. It was one of those silences so complete, they scream at you. Miss Rudd answered the question without appetite.
Later we had a discussion about unrest in the Yemen, Foreign Office Minister Tobias Ellwood using the event quite properly to make an apology for an earlier error made by the Foreign Office regarding Saudi Arabian arms deals. Once again, Mr Vaz was to be seen on his feet, oozing importance. Once again, his friend Bercow invited him to take the floor.
VAZ thanked the comparatively youthful Mr Ellwood for correcting the record. His tone was that of a cardinal imparting benediction to a penitent. But hang on. This is a man who, if the tapes are correct, has hired rough trade and bragged about having unprotected sex.
How can he possibly possess the moral authority to pose as an elder of our legislature?
The Commons is damaged by such association. And did it help these serious matters of antiterrorism and Gulf violence that the politician mentioning them is embroiled in allegations of the most unseemly depravity?
Having coughed up his few words, the Right Hon Member made for the door. As he left he vouchsafed a few bon mots to Richard Burden (Lab, Northfield) and Robert Flello (Lab, Stoke S). They watched him depart. Once he was out of sight, they laughed, Mr Burden’s eyebrows all a-wriggle.
Mr Vaz may intend to glide ever onwards, sebaceous progress unimpeded, but how can he ever again be taken seriously?