BRITAIN: Sleaze returned to haunt the Labour government yesterday as former Europe minister, Mr Keith Vaz, faced a month-long suspension from parliament for "serious breaches" of the MPs' code of conduct.
The controversial former minister's return to the spotlight spelt acute embarrassment for the Prime Minister, Mr Blair, as he walked the high moral ground in Ghana developing his theme of a true partnership between Africa and the developed world. Mr Blair backed Mr Vaz until last June's general election, and yesterday the Conservative leader, Mr Iain Duncan Smith, said the findings of the Standards and Privileges Committee raised serious questions about the prime minister's judgment.
The condemnation of Mr Vaz for contempt of the House of Commons over his financial dealings with the Hinduja brothers, and for wrongly interfering with the investigative process against him, also coincided with a fresh series of rows which left ministers battling internal Labour criticisms over government policies for the NHS and London Underground, and Mr David Blunkett's encouragement to Asians to make more arranged marriages in Britain rather than on the Indian sub-continent.
As Labour's national policy forum debated a draft document referring to a National Health Service "largely" comprehensive and "overwhelmingly" free, the Health Secretary, Mr Alan Milburn, sought to defuse a threatened "holy row" with union critics amid polling data apparently showing draining public confidence in Labour's management of the public services.
Challenging suspicions among Conservatives and the left that he is ready to embrace greater reliance on private provision, Mr Milburn insisted: "The NHS will remain based on clinical need and not ability to pay, as free at the point of use and at least as comprehensive as it is today."
Meanwhile, the Transport Secretary, Mr Stephen Byers, faced a furious backlash from Labour MPs over his decision to push-ahead with the part privatisation of the Tube. Mrs Gwyneth Dunwoody, Labour chairman of the Commons Transport Select Committee, said the Public Private Partnership scheme was "indefensibly incompetent" and "manifestly unworkable." London's Mayor, Mr Ken Livingstone, is leading opposition to the scheme which separates the running of the tube from track and other maintainance operations.
And left-wing MP Ms Diane Abbot accused the government of "breathtaking arrogance" in overriding public and expert opinion.
These blasts of internal dissent came just 24 hours after the largely silent Labour benches watched the Conservatives give the warmest Commons welcome to Mr Blunkett's new literacy and loyalty tests for foreigners wishing to acquire British citizenship, and his foray into the vexed question of arranged marriages.
Mr Vaz described his proposed one-month suspension from the Commons as "disproportionate" after the Privileges Committee finding that he had provided "misleading information" to its predecessor during the last parliament, and that he had "recklessly" made an untrue allegation against a witness to its inquiry. The committee found "Mr Vaz failed in his public duty under the Code of Conduct 'to act on all occasions in accordance with the public trust placed in him'. By wrongfully interfering with the House's investigative process he also committed a contempt of the House."