Keith Vaz: If You Are Happy To Out Someone Maybe You Should Be Out?

On a park bench over a ­thousand miles from Westminster sit the two men at the centre of the biggest ­political scandal of the year.

Anxious and shaken by fallout of the past seven days, they are struggling to come to terms with the intense scrutiny prompted by their Keith Vaz revelations.

But they are choosing to break their silence on the storm that led the Labour MP to quit as chair of the powerful Home Affairs Select Committee.

In an exclusive interview, the men Mr Vaz paid for sex accuse the shamed politician of being a “liar and an actor”.

In further allegations the friends said that:

Married father of two Mr Vaz offered to fly them abroad with more escorts.

He offered to pay £50 for each male prostitute the men supplied.

He used code when he texted about sex – referring to it as “painting”.

He said he would employ one of the men as a chauffeur.

The men also vigorously dismissed claims that they had drugged Mr Vaz.

The escorts returned home to Eastern Europe following our ­revelations last week...

Sunday Mirror.

£30,000!

Hope they got paid well for this, too.

Keith Vaz: Sunday Papers

'The people must have something good to read on a Sunday'.

Mail On Sunday - who are loving this.

'Asian Labour MP is a poof'! etc,

The Sunday Times reminds us of the real reasons to hate Keith Vaz.

Keith Vaz: Utterly Meaningless

Mail Online

Phoning up the Met's press office and asking if they might do something is first class junk journalism.

'Erm, no, not really. Can I get back to you on this?'

Keith Vaz: Viz

Ironically, this Times' cartoon by Peter Brookes is, like Viz, not very funny, but rather childish and 'ironically' bigoted.

Another great pun by Dave Brown at The Independent (no idea why it's taken cartoonists three days to get around to this).

Matt, Telegraph.

'Compound for sins they are inclined to by damning those they have no mind to.'

Samuel Butler after the Wilde trials.

Keith Vaz: K-K-Katie

We’re asking the wrong question about Keith Vaz, should he stay or should he go?

The real question is actually how tolerant are you?

In truth, we all love a grubby story. It’s the reason you can never get your hands on a copy of the tabloids at BBC Broadcasting House — liberal lefties can’t get enough of them.

We like it when other people are caught being dirty because we feel cleaner about our own lives. Someone else’s affair makes us feel smug in our marriage, horror frocks at the TV Choice Awards making our own wardrobe look pretty classy after all.

But being interesting does not make something in the public interest. Do we really need to know what Keith Vaz gets up to behind closed doors?

Hosting my radio show as the news broke, I said no.

I felt strangely distant from others around me who were titivated by the story, lapping up the gory details, one colleague gloating over this final demise after years of scandal.

It makes no sense coming from me, I know....

Mail Online.

You can say that again.

Even a stopped mad right-wing controversialist clock...

Obsessed much?

Keith Vaz: Sorry

What else is he meant to be sorry about? Having fun?

Keith Vaz: Mind Your Language

Fascinated by how papers have described male sex workers.

The Guardian seemed keen on 'sex workers'.

The Independent were divided over 'sex workers' and 'male escorts'.

The original Sunday Mirror front page said 'prostitutes' - no gender given, but the blurred photo showed it was a lad - the accompanying online video said 'male escorts'.

The Mail also seems to prefer the wonderfully euphemistic 'male escorts'.

It fluctuates, but it's usually 'male prostitute' at The Times.

The Telegraph - whose style guide still recommends calling gay men 'homosexuals' - is alone in saying they were 'rent boys'.

Actually Fagburn's preferred phrase.

Keith Vaz: You Are The Quarry

They shall not rest til you are dead.

The full cuntery of the British media exposed.

PS And inevitably Britain's unfunniest satirist, Richard Littlejohn, wades in.

Keith Vaz: The Usual Suspects

Who ya gonna call?

The same people we always do.

Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz....

Keith Vaz: Justified Ancients Of Mu Mu

In terms of journalistic ethics, the central issue about the newspaper’s conduct is whether the article, and the method employed to obtain it, had a genuine public interest justification.

We have been here many, many times down the years, although somewhat more rarely since the Leveson inquiry...

First, let’s consider the matter from Vaz’s position. The paper intruded into his privacy. It was entirely up to him if he wished to engage the services of prostitutes. It was not a criminal act.

It is true that prostitution is not illegal and politicians have a right to a private life. But, however much one sympathises with Vaz, it is undeniable that he is compromised by his special position as the chair of a commons committee tasked with making recommendations about prostitution...

“We did not entrap him”, said the [Mirror] spokesperson. “We acted in the public interest and, in so doing, we omitted many other details of the meeting between the men and Mr Vaz.”

So this whole affair revolves around privacy. According to the editors’ code intrusion into a person’s privacy is warranted if there is a genuine public interest.

Among the definitions of public interest are the exposure of “serious impropriety” and the exposure of actions or statements by an individual that could be said to mislead the public.

The Sunday Mirror’s editorial made its stance clear. It conceded that “nothing Mr Vaz has done is illegal.” But, as chairman of the home affairs select committee, he held a powerful position...

Elected politicians, people responsible for making laws, must live by different standards to those who vote for them. As plenty of MPs have discovered in the past, they have to pay a price for the privileges they enjoy. Part of that price is the need to sacrifice an absolute right to privacy.

Some silly tosh from Professor Roy G on Media Guardian.

PS And an hilariously bad 'angry think piece' by Joe 'Moron' Morgan at Gay Star News.

Keith Vaz: Saint Peter Speaks

Independent.

'Who shall we get to talk about this?'

'Well, it's a gay story, so... Peter Tatchell!'

'But I don't think he knows much about it.'

'Prfft. He's the go-to guy on any gay story.'

'But he'll just say his usual boring sanctimonious banalities.'

'Yeah, I know. But we usually get away with it.'

'OK. Pub?'

'Pub.'

Keith Vaz: Shame?

My own belief is that there is hardly anyone whose sexual life, if it were broadcast, would not fill the world at large with surprise and horror.

W. Somerset Maugham.

This is so nasty, so cruel, so juvenile, so puritanical, so hypocritical.

Keith Vaz: Oops

Well this is awkward.

Bet The Sun are FEWMING they didn't get this.

Remember: Sex, especially gay sex and sex work, is wrong!

Even though no law has been broken, and it's hard to see how this story is in the 'public interest'.

PS Keith speaks out on poppers (via Hansard).