The mathematician G.H. Hardy once said that a “first class man” should never expresses a majority opinion as there will be plenty of other people to do that. Well here I am re-expressing the, now widely held, opinion that Speaker Michael Martin should soon step aside. Evidently I am not what Hardy would have called a first class man but then very few of us can be that.
For the small number of readers who are not familiar with the story of Speaker Martin I will briefly outline what he has brought to the office of speaker over the last nine years. (Yes a small number of readers can still be a majority since the blog only has a small number of readers – Us!)
The Speaker, once elected, is supposed to completely sever their links with their former political party and maintain the strictest impartiality. Prior to Michael Martin’s appointment there was a tradition of alternation between speakers from the two main political parties (remembering that until fairly recently the Lib-Dems would have had far too few members to wish to spare one to take on the role of speaker). The Speaker before Michael Martin was the highly esteemed Betty (now Baroness) Boothroyd who was a former Labour MP, although you would never have guessed it from the way she conducted herself in the chair. Consequently there was a perception among the more honourable honourable members that it was time to have a Speaker drawn from the Liberal or Conservative benches.
However the 1997 elected Labour back benchers, drunk on their hundred and eighty odd working majority decided to break with tradition, which is after all basically an evil, Tory, idea, and impose Old Labour loyalist Michael Martin upon the Speaker’s chair. He has remained the blunt class warrior that he was as an MP with a peculiar hatred of Tories, plumy accents and, no doubt, polo players! I should also mention that he is no Ramanujan, an aleph class man if you like, or a perhaps a first class Pig if the abuse of his parlimentary expences is anything to go by.
In his time as Speaker he has consistently shown considerable bias towards similarly aged, similarly scottish, similarly Labour back benchers and indeed anyone watching a rumbustious debate in the chamber will probably be able to infer, within half an hour or so, roughly where Speaker Martin’s sympathises lie on the matter.
Ultimately though it was the now well known events surrounding the arrest of Damian Green, along with the search of his parliamentary offices, that has brought him lasting shame and unequivocally made him the worst Speaker in living memory. Almost any other Speaker from modern history would have remembered Speaker Lenthall’s bravely spoken words of 1642 “I have neither eyes to see, nor tongue to speak except as directed by this house”. These words to a King, no less, who had entered the House of Commons in force accomponied by soldiers attempting to arrest five MP’s who has flown away.
Speaker Martin should have unreservedly apologised for letting the Metropolitan Police ransack Damian Green’s offices. He should then have done the honourable thing and immediately resigned and gone to the Lords (as do all outgoing speakers).
I recognise that there is generally too much clamour for people if public life to tender their resignations at the first hiccup in their term of office but this was such a grave error of judgement that he cannot possibly hope to regain even a sliver of the widespread cross party support which a speaker must retain in order to remain effective.
Instead Speaker Martin simply gave a mealy mouthed “apology” in which he tried to shift the blame to the sergeant at arms and the police saying that he “was not told that the police did not have warrant”. Many MP’s no doubt were left thinking, “Well frankly Mick you should have known; in the policeman’s professional handbook on page 1 is detailed, “How to use trickery to obtain permission to enter premises when getting a warrant would be judicially awkward.” If you didn’t realise that then you are even more of a Blubber-Brain than we had previously thought.”
Finally rumours are now flying around that Speaker Martin may not agree to step down, even at the next election, unless his son (currently a Labour MSP) is allowed to take over the Labour nomination in his seat of Glasgow North East.
What an ironic image that would be of the battle weary class warrior processing off in his ermine while his son assumes the hereditary constituency.
#1 by george - July 4th, 2009 at 14:00
Speaker went on 21 June following, among other things, his vicious attack on Katy Hoey, the member for Vauxhall. Thereafter many MPs, including Lib Dem Leader Nick Clegg, called for his resignation over the expenses scandal.
Although the above posting was written prior to the expenses scandal I imagine that the Damian Green incident etc. was also a significant factor in the Minds of MPs.