No Confidence is What We Feel But Motions Like This Cannot Reassure

“That this House has no confidence in Mr Speaker and calls for him to step down; notes that Mr Speaker has failed to provide leadership in matters relating to hon. Members’ expenses; believes that a new Speaker urgently needs to be elected by secret ballot, free from manipulation by party Whips, under Standing Order No. 1B; and believes that a new Speaker should proceed to reform the House in such a way as to make it an effective legislature once again.”

Reading that it seems to be too much in one bite. It is without precedent for the Speaker to face a vote of no confidence. Votes of no confidence are directed at the administration, the Executive, not at the House, as embodied in the Speaker, itself. Votes of no confidence are moved by Opposition Leaders, not backbenchers, for obvious reasons. Secret ballots are not parliamentary practice in the United Kingdom. Reforming the Legislature to make it effective once again flies in the face of every activity of the New Labour Executive since it took office; the downgrading of legislative and judicial controls on the Executive has been the primary aim of a regime that is determined to hold permanent office by defining any opposition as either within its compass, or outside political norms and even law.

Nevertheless, the disarray of our political institutions, and the rolling boil of corruption that has overwhelmed their proper functioning cannot continue. So the Motion is also too little. Who should act? It's time the Head of State broadcast some response to, and reassurance over, the state of our governance.