The john recuses himself
Keith Vaz has quit the job as Home Affairs Committee chairman.
The Sunday Mirror sought to justify its report by pointing to the political responsibilities of Mr. Vaz, suggesting that his conduct had compromised his ability to fulfill his duties.
As chairman of the Home Affairs Select Committee in the House of Commons, he enjoyed a prominent role in oversight of the Home Office, the department that controls Britain’s policy on, among other things, drugs and prostitution.
A john shouldn’t be overseeing policy on prostitution. Conflict of interest.
My dislike of him dates from his joining the theocratic outrage against Salman Rushdie.
In 1989, two years after becoming the first Asian MP since 1929, he led a march of several thousand Muslims in Leicester calling for Salman Rushdie’s book The Satanic Verses to be banned. Rushdie subsequently claimed that Vaz, a Catholic of Goan origin, had previously assured him of his support…
I consider that despicable.
“A john shouldn’t be overseeing policy on prostitution. Conflict of interest.”
So, should committees considering changes to drug policy consist only of people who use drugs, or only of people who have never used drugs and have had loved ones’ lives destroyed by drugs?
Should committees considering changes to employment laws consist only of billionaires who run multinational corporations who “employ” a lot of zero-hours workers, or only of blue collar workers in the unfortunate position to have spent a couple of decades learning a skill that’s no longer in demand and were never given much of a chance to learn about economics or running their own business?
Should committees considering changes to gender terminology for government-run healthcare consist only of cis people who have the privilege of not understanding what the fuss is about, or only of trans people who think that the word “women” should be reserved for “trans women” and AFABs should be referred to “people with front holes”?
In fact, why bother with committees, where there is at least a chance of getting a group of people with diverse backgrounds and viewpoints, at all? If we already know what the answer should be, according to someone with absolutely no existing bias or viewpoint on the subject, why doesn’t the government just issue dictats instead? It would save a lot of time, effort, money, and bureaucracy.
Karellen, that’s either really bad tempered shallow argumentation bordering on straw man or so garbled I’ve missed your point.
Taking you at face value though, why does every scenario have to be so binary?
What’s wrong with a committee on drug policy composed of people who may or may not have experimented with drugs, but who don’t currently use, don’t want to and who recognise the pro’s and con’s involved?
What’s wrong with a committee examining labour practices composed of informed people who neither own nor work in such environments?
etc etc
There may even be room for people with KNOWN stances on committees, provided that their views are adequately balanced and the committee as a whole is composed in such a way that an impartial process can be followed. However, hidden agenda and views are a no no and anyone who actually has a strong and known position is better placed to give evidence before the committee, rather than actually sit on the committee.
That’s where Vaz has fallen. He projected an image that was impartial, when in fact he had a deeply vested interest. One which on it’s face certainly doesn’t favour recognition of sex workers as empowered self-actualised beings, but rather objects as receptacles for his pleasure to be used and discarded. That is why he specifically is not fit to examine the question at issue on the behalf of the Nation.
The point I was trying to make was, it seems wrong to me to say that a person should not be part of a government committee on looking at the future of X, if they have a point of view on X. Or, more specifically, if they have a strong point of view on X that is different from mine!
Most people have existing points of view on most subjects. We all have prejudices. Saying that people with views we disagree with should not be represented on a committee seems very undemocratic. Also, who gets to decide which views are allowed, or more specifically, not allowed to be represented on the committee?
Having people with a diverse set of viewpoints, and telling them that they have a responsibility to be open-minded and *listen* to each other, and to try and come to a fair conclusion won’t always get us the result we want every time. But I think it’s a damn sight better than the alternative. Democracy is messy. It doesn’t always move us forward with every step it takes. But it seems to be the least bad way we’ve found of moving forward on average, over the long run.
Yeah, nah. There is a huge difference between being a decision maker representing the wider population, or even an ordinary person with a known and stated opinion, and being a person who projects a mainstream image while actually holding an extreme position in secret. In this case Vaz, in his own words, exposes himself to be an abuser, seeking to regulate an activity rife with abuse.
This is not about democracy or being allowed to have an opinion. It’s about the integrity and transparency of the process of government. Strangely, it’s applicable to many non-democratic forms of government as well.
This isn’t a matter of someone’s “point of view”. It’s more like having a chair of a committee looking at the regulation of an industry, say banking or energy, who is also, secretly, heavily invested in the industry under scrutiny. It’s the combination of the interest with the secrecy that poses the problem for the legitimacy of the inquiry. Someone who has a an undisclosed interest in the outcome should not be helping to determine that outcome. It’s the secret personal stake rather than just an opinion that throws the process into question as one is left to wonder whether any decision that was made was for the personal benefit of the secret shareholder rather than the public at large.
Contrast this, however, with the presence of theocratic apologists in the study of Sharia in Britain. Here the interests are openly paraded, became criteria for committee membership. The theocrats’ ideas are the ones being investigated: by the theocrats.
A point of view is not the same thing as an interest. Conflict of point of view isn’t a thing; conflict of interest is. Vaz has an interest, not just a pov.
Not Bruce and Ophelia, exactly. Thanks for making the point I was endeavouring to get across.
But Vaz isn’t a pimp or a brothel owner, he’s a John. Surely that’s the equivalent of a purchaser of electricty, i.e. a home user, (or, someone with a bank account w.r.t. banking) rather than an “invested”/”interested” insider.
Are you suggesting that anyone who has mains electricty shouldn’t be on committees looking at energy policy, or anyone with a bank account shouldn’t be involved in banking regulations?
Under the Nordic model Johns are subject to arrest. People who buy electricity are not.
Yes Karellen, he’s a john, and an abusive one at that. See my comment at 4, YNNB at 5 or OB at 6. All those comments adequately rebut and expand on your point, which incidentally is quite wilfully and transparently drawing a blatantly false comparison.