Even Labour MPs want the speaker to go

Michael Martin's statement mid week may have got him of the hook in the short term, but in general terms, Michael Martin seemed hopelessly ill suited to the job of speaker. He seems to show undue bias towards the government and seems unable to manage the House of Commons in the way that MPs have come to expect throughout the history of his job.

We might expect that opposition MPs would be casting doubts about Mr Speaker, but when every one's favourite Labour MP (Bob Marshal-Andrews) is also saying that Michael Martin should step down, then it is high time the speaker reconsidered his position.

House of Commons loses fight to stop expenses being published

The House of Commons has lost its rather disgraceful legal fight to prevent details of MP's expenses claims being made available to the public.

Sadly, some MPs and senior HoC officials chose to try and block voters from finding out what MPs actually spend their money on. One argument used to try and prevent this information being published was that it would put MPs at risk and make them less secure. Obviously some MPs forgot that their address is actually published on the ballot paper every time they stand for election.

What will be interesting will be to see who has made the most ludicrous expenses claims. Press reports some months ago suggested that in some cases MP's claims could be very embarrassing and might mean some would be forced to consider their position.

Either way, those who have abused the system will be caught out and hopefully people will see that some MPs are not all crooks as they have all in recent weeks been tarred with the same brush of sleaze because of a few individuals like Derek Conway.

Calling time on Mr Speaker

As Iain Dale puts it,

"The real point is that Michael Martin has been the worst Speaker in living memory. He deserves to go because he's useless. The expenses allegations are a diversion from the point that he should go because of his incompetence. Every Labour MP I speak to recognises this privately and Conservatives and LibDems think so too"

All the Sunday papers are circling around like vultures, but it should be remembered that vultures hang around the dead or dying and that politically and in terms of respect for the position of speaker, Michael Martin is a dying man.

It's not all to do with his latest expenses problems or to do with letting his family use his air miles built up on flights paid for from his parliamentary expenses. It is more do do with his intransigence, the way he does not appear to be unbiased whilst presiding of the House of Commons and his lack of understanding of what has gone wrong.

It is time for him to go.