MPs on cock-up alert
Lib Dems really are jokers. Comic Matt Forde and Tim Farron are planning a joint gig at party conference in Brighton. Vaz’s old committee pals play vital role in guarding against corruption
NEXT to newspapers, Parliamentary select committees are the best protection we’ve got against corruption and cock-up.
Select committees are all-party groups of refreshingly bloody-minded MPs who can investigate whoever and whatever tickles their fancy.
They can be as rude as they like to anyone they don’t like and the armour of Parliamentary privilege stops t hem being sued f or defamation.
If witnesses are reluctant to be questioned they can be subpoenaed.
If they defy that, MPs can throw them into the prison cell beneath the Commons which exists for the purpose.
Unpopular
That was the fate which awaited news tycoon Rupert Murdoch had he refused to give evidence in the phone hacking inquiry.
Each s elect committee scrutinises a Whitehall department so they are gratifyingly unpopular with Cabinet ministers.
Governments sit up and take notice when t hey make recommendations. That makes committee chairs as powerful as ministers.
It can go to their heads. It did with Keith Vaz who did so much grandstanding as head of the Home Affairs committee it’s a wonder he was ever able to sit as its chair. It took our sister newspaper the Sunday Mirror to expose him as unfit for the job.
And now, the decision MPs make on his replacement is important to us all.
Too much personal interest in drugs and prostitution did for Vaz.
But that is only part of the Home Affairs committee remit. It must now deal with Brexit’s implications for immigration, how best to tackle terrorism, and making the policing of Britain fairer, especially for black people.
Labour’s Caroline Flint and Chuka Umunna have thrown their hats into the ring – and the former Shadow Home Secretary Yvette Cooper might. Caroline would stand no nonsense, Yvette has a wealth of home affairs experience and, at 37, Chuka is the baby of the trio.
But that might work in his favour. Radicalisation and racial equality tend to be issues closer to his generation and ethnic origin than theirs. Vaz blamed Press scrutiny for his downfall. Others have blamed select committees for theirs.
The truth is those who indulge in behaviour unacceptable to their position have only themselves to blame when it is revealed.