Who would you trust: a police officer, or Keith Vaz MP?
I was saddened to read of the death of William Rees-Mogg, one of the truly great editors of The Times. Although I had not seen him for a while, we spoke on the telephone quite often and I will miss picking up the phone to hear that distinctive voice expressing sound sense on the issues both large and small of the day. He was a deeply religious man which gave a consistency to his views and I can only hope that his expectations of a better life after this one will be realised.
Would that I could find anything similar to say about another man in the news, Keith Vaz, who has been sounding off on the subject of what he sees as the public's loss of confidence in the police. That would not matter much but for the fact that Mr Vaz is the chairman of the House of Commons Select Committee on Home Affairs, which is to conduct an inquiry into such matters. Last week he called for a Royal Commission on the Police. That would of course take years and provide many millions of pounds of scarce public money to make lawyers even richer.
If we appointed Royal Commissions to look into institutions which had lost public confidence, I think the House of Commons would be well ahead of the police in the list of possible candidates.
Were it not a serious matter, it would be hard not to laugh outright at the thought of Mr Vaz holding any public office at all, let alone the Chairmanship of a Select Committee, and one can only be astounded at his impertinence at seeking to judge the conduct of the police, or indeed anyone else.
According to the BBC, after an IRA bombing of an Army Recruiting Centre in Leicester in 1990, Mr Vaz claimed that the bomb may have been planted by the Army.
In 2002, Vaz was censured by a Parliamentary Committee for Standards and Privileges, led by Elizabeth Filkin. The committee "found that Mr Vaz committed serious breaches of the code of conduct and a contempt of the House," including giving misleading information to the committee about his financial relationship to the Hinduja brothers, two Indian businessmen who were alleged to have used political contacts in order to fast-track their applications for British passports.
Filkin also said that Mr Vaz had colluded with his wife to conceal payments to her from the Hindujas: while she found that Parliamentary rules did not require disclosures of any such payments, she added that "It is clear to me there has been deliberate collusion over many months between Mr Vaz and his wife to conceal this fact and to prevent me from obtaining accurate information about his possible financial relationship with the Hinduja family".
Mr Vaz was also found by the Committee to have made false allegations against a retired police officer. He claimed that Eileen Eggington, a decorated former Special Branch deputy head, had made malicious telephone calls to his elderly mother at home. Mrs Eggington's phone records revealed no such call. "Mr Vaz recklessly made a damaging allegation against Miss Eggington, which was not true and which could have intimidated Miss Eggington and undermined her credibility," the committee said.
More recent allegations have been made. A 2001 Scotland Yard document seen by the Telegraph in September 2012claimed that "numerous unexplained payments into [accounts belonging to or linked to Mr Vaz] and large transfers between accounts" were made, “the level of funds received … are of a suspicious nature”, and that they "require further investigation.” The payments allegedly amounted to more than £500,000 over six years.
At the end of all this, there is just one question to be asked. Who would you rather trust, or in whom would you have the greater confidence: Mr Vaz, or a police officer?
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