Tom Watson to face select committee over pursuit of Leon Brittan - "Tom Watson a decent man with integrity"

I personally would like to say thanks & well done to Tom Watson a man with real integrity.

Tom Watson will appear before a parliamentary committee next week to explain why he urged police to reopen an investigation of rape against the late peer Leon Brittan.

The home affairs select committee has invited Labour’s deputy leader to appear next Wednesday at what is expected to be a fractious meeting. Watson will not attempt to avoid close questioning from MPs, it is understood.

Conservative MPs are furious with Watson over his pursuit of Brittan, who was suffering from cancer in his final months, as well as the Labour MP’s comment soon after Brittan died that the Tory peer was “close to evil”.

It means that the tables will be turned on Watson, who gained a reputation as a ferocious select committee inquisitor after he grilled Rupert Murdoch over phone-hacking allegations in 2012.

Brittan died in January without knowing that he had been cleared of suspicion over the allegation that he had raped a woman. It has emerged that Watson had previously written to the director of public prosecutions, Alison Saunders, about an allegation of rape when he learned that the police inquiry was being dropped.

Four Conservative MPs asked the committee chairman, Keith Vaz, to put Watson’s actions on the agenda when it meets in private on Tuesday.