Why didn’t the full Savile story emerge sooner?

Every so often a story appears in the newspapers which, while it might seem on the surface sensational and arresting, actually leaves you feeling somewhat less than astonished, all things considered. There have been at least two of these stories recently. The first, in the Daily Telegraph, alleged that Scotland Yard was investigating suspiciously large sums of cash apparently paid into the bank account of the Labour MP for Leicester East, Keith Vaz. I bet that very few people who have ever heard the words ‘Keith’ and ‘Vaz’ used in a conjoined sense will have smacked their foreheads upon reading this story and muttered to themselves: ‘Gaw, Keith Vaz, hey — who’d have believed it?’

I ought to point out here and now that while a complaint has been lodged with the Parliamentary Standards Commissioner, Keith himself has insisted that it is all a lot of stuff and nonsense and the money is perfectly above-board and tickety-boo, all half a million quid of it.