COME ROMANIANS, COME

IF NOTHING ELSE, MY YEARS AT UNIVERSITY taught me to avoid politics and politicians like the plague. My father, in his infinite wisdom, had already primed me on many occasions about those people in life who were, in his (perfectly correct) opinion, "odd".

HE PERSUADED ME NOT TO JOIN the Scouts when he quietly sowed the seeds of doubt in my mind about scoutmasters with his gentle question, "David, do you think it is normal for a grown man to give up his weekends to go about wearing short trousers and camping with ten-year-old boys when he could be at home spending time with his wife?"

WHEN I TURNED EIGHTEEN he gave me his opinion about voting: "Just think, before you vote, 'Why would anyone want me to vote for them?'" To this day I have not come up with a sensible answer to this question other than that these people want my money and power over me without having to work in a proper job. Thus I have never voted in any capacity in my life.

AT UNIVERSITY COLLEGE LONDON the main candidates for elections seemed to be foaming-at-the-mouth socialists who were deranged enough to believe that being chosen for a committee that basically was only responsible for selecting what music to play at the Friday night disco was one step towards smashing the major banking institutions, eliminating religion, ending poverty in the third world and forming world governments made up almost exclusively of black homosexual invalids.

AT KINGS COLLEGE LONDON the candidates at the hustings were usually decent, middle-class people who seemed genuine enough, but when I got to know some of them better I found that one, in my first year, still collected Action Man equipment at the age of 19, another had a passion for watching weather maps on TV and another collected Thomas the Tank Engine toys. Heaven knows what other perversions were waiting to appear in their future lives.

AT MAGDALEN COLLEGE OXFORD things were more straightforward. One chap, when I asked him why I should vote for him for a position on the Student Union Board had a refreshingly honest reply. "If you vote for me," he pointed out, "you will feel you are a part of a democratic process. If no one votes for me I shall simply tell my father to put me on the Board." This gentleman is currently a member of the House of Lords.

ALL IN ALL, MOST OF THESE people were odd. Which brings me to Keith "Vazeline" Vaz. Of course it is not "odd" for politicians to keep money given to them to give to charities. Of course it is not "odd" for married politicians with children to pay to have sex with young male prostitutes. Of course it is not odd for these politicians to openly text these prostitutes about how much "rogering" they will give them and how horny they are feeling. Of course it is not odd for politicians to defend one thing in public and do something else in private. Such as purchasing and supplying illegal drugs. Of course not.

HOWEVER, WHAT IS EXTREMELY ODD is for a politician to be so utterly stupid as Mr Vaz is. He has already barely managed to wriggle his way out of a series of scandals involving bribes, financial misdemeanour and selling of influence, and -- error of all errors -- has been critical of press freedom. Oddness is embodied in the fact that an experienced politician like Mr Vaz should believe that he could get away with all this behaviour without the press wanting to take an interest. 

EVERYONE LIKES A GOOD STORY, and Mr Vaz recently left, as they sometimes say, the book open on the dining room table, when he made the mistake of telling his Polish rent boys that he was interested in having sex with a Romanian lad. Vaz, in the texts he wrote and which were published by the Daily Mirror today, seemed particularly excited about the fact that the (non-existent) Romanian boy was "intact" and possibly didn't speak English but was ready for a bit of "rough" in return for drugs and money.

THIS ASPECT OF THE EVENT played into the hands of the press and into mine. For it was Mr Vaz who, on the morning of January 1st 2014, the first day that Romanians could come to the UK legally, went to Luton airport to personally meet the first Romanians off the plane from Tirgu Mures and to welcome them to "our country". I watched the press conference live at the time. "We want Romanians to come," said Mr Vaz. "They will be a valuable contribution to us all." Indeed.

(My pictures show a somewhat shifty Mr Vaz, at Luton Airport at 7.30 in the morning meeting the first Romanian off the plane, then a friend of his, and then buying them breakfast.)

WHAT LIES BENEATH

I MUST CONFESS I AM MILDLY AMUSED by the advice given by the British Government security services at MI6 before the visit of Prime Minister Theresa May and her officials to Hangzhou in China for the G20 summit meeting.

IT SHOULD NOT BE NECESSARY to warn today's politicians about the dangers of spying, and particularly of "honey trapping" when powerful diplomats and top-notch businessmen are gathered for talks in countries where the local populations are desperate to escape the regimes under which they live, and where a few hundred pounds, which any gentleman would have in his wallet for minor expenses between meals, would allow a local to live like royalty for a few years.

THE DISASTROUS VISIT TO CHINA by Prime Minister Gordon Brown in 2008 involved one of his close advisors being "spiked", "honeyed" and "fleeced", to use the jargon known to us who have worked for the security services, an incident which disgraced the whole mission, and particularly the government security team.

WHEN, AS A YOUNG MAN, I was involved in work for the British Government security services, we were always told to undress under the bed sheets so as not to be photographed by hidden cameras when staying in hotels. Although I was not "in field" in China, but in Portugal, I was still advised to carry a bed sheet with me to any public toilet and cover myself in it completely when using the sit-down lavatory.

I SHOULD STATE THAT IN PORTUGAL in the late nineteen-seventies this was also useful as a protection against mosquitoes, and that I grew to look forward to those moments of complete isolation from reality.

AS FOR UNDRESSING UNDER THE SHEETS, I may also state that there were some positives to this practice other than avoiding being photographed by cameras hidden in the air conditioning unit, radio alarm clock, wall-bracketed TV set or the more obvious smoke detector. I used to take a good deal of erotic pleasure in taking my clothes off in this manner, particularly when in the company of a beautiful young girl, an inept "spy" with no talent whatsoever for dissimulation and who was doing the same thing next to me.

THE OFFICIAL ADVICE TO THERESA MAY and her team is to "undress under the bedclothes" if one is "uncomfortable about being seen naked". I saw a photograph of the British G20 team earlier today, and either there are a lot of deluded people (albeit true that most politicians are deluded about their own worth and value) on this diplomatic mission, or there will be a lot of people undressing under the sheets.

NO PRIME MINISTER OF THE UK has ever been what one might call "my cup of tea", and if I were in close proximity with the present one I would be more than pleased to have her undress under the sheets, hopefully after having removed her kitten heels and left her corset in the bathroom beforehand. Someone should advise two members of her team that major blackmail may ensue if anyone gets a photo of their false teeth in a cup of water by the bed or of their hairpieces hanging on the bedstead.

GORDON BROWN'S DIPLOMAT was "fleeced", but at least this was after he had had the aplomb to take a seventeen-year-old prostitute to his hotel room; getting "fleeced" because someone has a photo of you bald and toothless when you portray yourself as dynamic and a possible candidate for the highest office is something a little smuttier.