Keith Vaz is facing the longest suspension in history after the Commons Standards Committee found he had breached the MPs’ Code of Conduct by paying two male escorts for sex and offering to cover the cost of cocaine for a third man. The Committee – which is made up of MPs and lay members, said he had ’caused significant damage to the reputation and integrity of the House of Commons as a whole’, and said it represented ‘a very serious breach of the Code’.
This brings to an end a row which has gone on since August 2016, when Vaz met the two men in his flat. One of them was covertly recording the encounter, and the story was printed by The Sunday Mirror. It included Vaz describing himself as a washing machine salesman named Jim (which he spelt for the men).
Today’s report is striking for a number of reasons. Firstly, the sanctions it recommends are very stringent indeed.
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