Vaz was very close to Janner and in parliament described powerful paedophile evidence against Janner as a “wicked and cowardly attack.” He lost a ministerial position for corrupt handling of billionaire passport applications.
But what he did in private with consenting adults is his own business, and there is a bad tendency to conflate homosexuality with paedophilia in much social media comment today. Nor is he a hypocrite – had he been an opponent of prostitution the story would have public interest in exposing hypocrisy. But as he supports liberalisation he is not a hypocrite, and as entitled to express his view on prostitution in parliament as he is his view on supermarkets, which he also uses.
(It has been pointed out to me that he is a hypocrite in that he has claimed in parliament not to know what poppers are. I accept this correction).
I dislike Vaz very much, have for years, for his politics and practice in public office. But not for his private life which there was no real public interest in revealing today. It is yet more prurient tittle tattle from our pathetic media. The most disgraceful thing in today’s story is that he keeps his whisky in the fridge, which is well nigh unforgiveable.