I really don’t like Keith Vaz.
I don’t like his posturing, his jumping on every available bandwagon, his readiness to ruin the reputation of others and the glee with which he does it.
Which just happen to be exactly the same reasons why I don’t like the headlines regarding Vaz in the Mirror today.
Some would say ‘the oily little git had it coming to him’ – is that what we want? Retribution by newspaper headline?
Some would say ‘we rely on the papers to expose this hypocrisy’. Fair point – if only the inhabitants of Canary Wharf were as free of hypocrisy themselves! Ms Raccoon has spent a fair bit of time around the old Fleet Street and can assure readers that cocaine salesmen would go out of business without the solid repeat business from the denizens of those ivory towers – and as for their sexual habits…let’s not go there before breakfast.
They are paid by the public too, and judge morals on our behalf, so when they set up a newspaper prepared to carry stories on the sexual and drug relaxation methods used by those virtue signallers, I will accept that they are right to pay for the entrapment of politicians with unusual, though not illegal, choices for their Friday nights.
My main concern, as always, is for Mrs Vaz and the little Vaz’s. She also has done nothing wrong, and there is not a single reason in the world why she should have to wake up to those headlines this morning and explain to her children that this is how journalists pay their mortgages these days – by waiting for the euphemistically named ‘escorts’ to snare a customer with a modicum of celebrity and then beetle down to their offices with their smutty pictures of homosexual encounters and tales of drug taking.
‘Hey oop lads, we’ve caught a biggun here’ they cheer, and slide it into place alongside the pixelated medical pictures of the poor chap in Kenya with a grossly enlarged penis.
What do we know of Nick Dorman, the journalist responsible for this outbreak of journalistic outrage? How did he come by these escorts? Does he work alongside them on the QT? He could do for all we know.
Is this really what we ask of journalists? Really the media we want?
The argument against pornography is that it debases those who watch it; that it leaves them ‘jaded’ when it comes to boring ‘missionary’ sex – they want something more exotic. The same could be said of those who search for child sex images online, or who immerse themselves in the detail of tales of child abuse.
Is it any accident that Simon Danczuk has gone off the rails recently? Or that incidents of people searching for images of children online have increased tenfold? Or that chairmen of committee charged with looking into whether gay escorts should be paid end up being accused of hiring gay escorts?
Could it be that the national hysteria is infecting the very people who are most deeply immersed in it; that people who had never thought of doing ‘x’ or ‘y’ read constantly that this is what the rest of the world is doing and think ‘I wonder if it might be enjoyable’ as their fingers roam the keyboards? Is society actually creating the problem it is so concerned about?
So what if Vaz hired a gay escort. If he is bisexual, would you prefer that he go cruising on Clapham Common? Or perhaps you would like him to abandon his wife and children and ‘come out’ in time honoured fashion?
If evidence of his stated ‘hypocrisy’ is available to an editor, then surely a stiffly worded letter to the Prime Minister along with the evidence from a reputable newspaper would solve the problem of having a committee chairman that might be said to have a conflict of interest.
That of course, would not sell newspapers. Wouldn’t enable them to squeal with delight at the thought of offering their readers the chance to ‘listen’ to the illicit audio recording, or pore over the titillating picture of hands wandering in perfectly legal directions.
Nor would it give them the chance to destroy Mrs Vaz’ life and the peace of mind and happiness of their children.
Dear God; I never thought I would be writing in defence of anyone called Vaz – I simply cannot stand him. Not since the days when he roamed the corridors of the Court of Protection.
Mrs Vaz and the little Vaz’s are a different matter. Think of them as you chortle with delight.