Gerri Peev: Smooth as Vaz-eline

What is it about Keith Vaz, the chairman of the home affairs committee, that makes celebrities cling to him like velcro?
Today he is escorting no lesser figure than the Reverend Jesse Jackson around the House of Commons. He did his best to shield him from minor press intrusion (mine) outside the Members' Dining Room which boasts silver service and sweeping views of the Thames. It was also Vaz who hosted Shilpa Shetty (she of Bollywood and Big Brother fame) around Westminster a couple of years back, launching an impromptu press conference on the House of Commons terrace, much to the disdain of the Palace authorities.
He was applauded by Rev Jackson today who cited the "talented" and "right honourable" Keith Vaz as an example of how the UK could one day have its own Obama.

Who would have thought Vaz would reach such dizzying heights? Certainly not Chris Mullin, the former Foreign Office minister, who describes him as a "lightweight" in his entertaining diary, A View From the Foothills. He also calls him a "sleek wheeler-dealer" in the metaphoric sense of course, and says he has the "attention span of a gnat and a tendency to fantasise". No word yet on what Vaz makes of Mullin.