Speaker on the Rails… and He’s Off.

Yesterday was a pretty momentous day in the House of Commons. In a somewhat misguided step, the Speaker Michael Martin attempted to defend his position as members from all parties tried to force a vote of no confidence onto the floor. Michael Martin’s impartiality in the recent ‘expenses’ fiasco has been called into question by several eminent MPs including Nick Clegg the leader of the Liberal Democrats. For those with a finger on the political pulse you will most likely recall that the Speaker was recently accused of spending thousands of pounds on taxi rides for his wife’s shopping trips. Back in 2008 the Telegraph reported that Michael Martin’s wife spent over £4,000 on various taxi trips. The paper also discovered that the Speaker himself claimed £75,000 over 6 years using the second home allowance for his house in Glasgow which later turned out to have no mortgage. The Speakers credibility was already on rocky ground and now it seems that he has too much of a vested interest in the parliamentary expense system.

The Speaker of the House of Commons has many significant roles within parliament. His main job is to keep order within the house whilst debates and insults rattle back and forth between the parties. The Speaker is essentially the highest authority within the House. His other main job is to chair the House of Commons Commission which deals with a variety of administrative details such as appointing members of staff to the house. The commission is also responsible for MP pay and expenses. Now clearly as the man is already implicated in various misuses of taxpayer money then how can he be involved in the commission which has overall authority over the expense system? What has happened to the famous impartiality of the Speaker? Clearly this is a classic case of conflict of interest and as such the Speaker should not be involved in any form of expense review or reform. In fact the man assiduously tried to prevent publication of MP expenses.

In a meeting yesterday Michael Martin attempted to hold his authority together and advised the Commons on the actions he intended to take to resolve the expense issue. This also involved a profound apology on behalf of the speaker to the men and women of the United Kingdom. However, this attempt at consolidating his authority failed and parliament descended into a bloodbath of jeers and shouts calling for the Speakers resignation. Today that moment finally came and in a short statement Michael Martin announced that for ‘the unity of parliament’ he would step down on the 21st June giving way to a quick election on the 22nd.

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