We are not in favour of Keith Vaz. This would be a mild statement of our attitude to him in fact. However, we do find ourselves having to step into the breach here and defend him. For we find it impossible to understand what it is that has been done wrong here.
The allegation is that he entertained, and had sex with, one or more men. Drugs were taken and cash changed hands. To which our reaction is, yes, and?
Freedom and liberty mean that consenting adults get to do what consenting adults wish to do. As long as there is no damage to people not consenting (or those not capable of consenting) that is, to us, the end of the matter.
One of the great advances in such freedom and liberty in recent decades is that men who wish to have sex with men may do so without fear of the law. A part of that great movement to take consenting sex of all kinds out of the grip of the law in fact.
The drugs, those allegedly actually taken, were and are legal, poppers. Cocaine, currently illegal, was apparently discussed - but then we think that cocaine should be legal anyway, see above about consenting adults.
Which leaves the cash issue - and again our question is, and? Any one of us is at liberty to swap bread with anyone we wish either as a mutual exchange of some sort or for cash. The giving of back rubs for mutual pleasure is legal as is charging cash for them - as the existence of one sort of massage parlour proves. That cash changes hands in the other sort of massage parlour we know but consider it to be that very same thing.
Or to put this another way, consenting adults get to do as consenting adults wish and we don't see that the intermediation of cash makes any damn difference.
And that is what the law is today. Cash for sex is not illegal as it should not be.
As at the top, we are not in favour of Mr. Vaz. And the thought of him fired up and "very horny" is not one that is improving our appetite for breakfast. Yet why is it that consenting adults should not be getting on with whatever it is that consenting adults wish to get on with?
Which leads us to one final point:
VETERAN Labour MP Keith Vaz last night stood down from chairmanship of the Home Affairs Select Committee after he was exposed for paying young men for sex.
The married father-of-two was caught meeting two Eastern European male prostitutes, believed to be Poles, for sex eight days ago and boasting about having unprotected sex, according to a newspaper.
Mr Vaz, 59, has been chairman of the Home Affairs Select Committee – which monitors crime, immigration and drugs policy - for nearly a decade. He has previously said he is ‘not convinced’ men who pay for sex should be prosecuted.
The committee is currently overseeing a major shake-up of the UK’s prostitution laws.
Why would we want to stop a politician who actually knows something about the subject under discussion from taking part in a discussion on that subject?