Failing to Speak for Us All

Speaker Martin's unforgivable partisanship, his determined support of the Labour party and of the Labour Executive, is as much part of our democratic crisis as the unacceptable use of expenses as untaxed wages.

He should have called the Leaders of the various parties in the House together, as any previous post-War Speaker would have done, and put in place an expenses system to meet standards of normal and decent behaviour in claiming for the costs of coming up to London for MPs from the provinces. He did not because the allowances system is an integral part of the carrot and stick control over, particularly, Labour backbenchers. He did not because he regarded, by his own words, any claimable expense for himself as 'what I am owed'. He did not because he takes his line, his orders even, from the current prime minister, as we can see from Brown's peculiar belief that he could issue unilateral orders on how expenses are to be claimed from now on, his impertinent 'apology' for the behaviour of others in the House for whom he could not possibly speak, and his gross rudeness when it was driven home to him finally that he had to act together with the leaders of the other parties and with individual backbenchers.

Speaker Martin is the embodiment of a blighted understanding of our political system. The purpose of the Legislature is to represent the interest of us all in the use of power. Power that each of us concedes for action for the general good not for the creation of an overbearing state redistributing our wealth and interfering in our private lives.