The Speaker of the House of Commons, Michael Martin, is due to speak about his position at 3:30 pm today (about an hour from when I am now writing this). There is a high chance he will resign in disgrace, rather than risk the even greater ignomy of being forced out by a vote of no-confidence from MPs. It appears that even fellow Scot Gordon Brown will not explicitly back him. The scandals over the outrageous arrest of Tory MP Damian Green, and now the relentless series of stories of MPs abusing expenses for things like mortgages on second homes, has damaged confidence in Parliament so badly that fringe parties such as UKIP and the British National Party – a party of hard-left economic views, let it be noted – may do relatively well in the upcoming June European Union elections.
This whole saga demonstrates the truth of the thesis that politicians increasingly have come to regard their own interests as set apart from the country as a whole. It adds to the notion, put forward by Sean Gabb, of an “Enemy Class” that is quite consciously at odds with the more conservative (small – c) values of the country. Of course, there has always been an element of this – it is naive to imagine that Parliament ever quite met some Greek ideal – but it is now in a particularly bad way.
Let’s hope Mr Martin sees sense and takes the proverbial bottle of whisky and the loaded revolver into his study. He will be the first Speaker to be ejected from his role in more than 300 years. Not a record to be proud of.
As an aside, it surprises me still how little this whole saga is registering in the foreign media. Anyone got any examples of US, French, German etc coverage of this? It might be nice if even Instapundit mentioned it.
Politicians stealing is not news. It happens all the time in many countries.
If ours did something to stop it, that would be news.
Forbes is covering it: http://www.forbes.com/2009/05/18/michael-martin-parliament-markets-economy-expenses.html
And the WSJ does so halfway into this article: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124234217266321317.html
Marvellous tactic. Not allowed to debate it, because it’s the wrong sort of motion.
That’s going to satisfy the public mood, isn’t it?
You know, I really do believe they are thinking they can ride this out, and that after all the fuss dies down the people will lose interest, and they’ll be able to carry on as normal.
Interesting times…
Just checking my e-mail on yahoo and there was a headline: “Brown urges cleanup of politics.” Perhaps the whiskey and revolver solution might apply to Gordo as well.
Then I thought perhaps someone had taken him up on his words when I saw the headline at the Beeb: “EU Commission offices evacuated due to fire.”
As far as them trying to ride out the storm, I think the plan is to take the hits in the Euro and Council elections then play the “Protest vote – We’ve learnt our lesson – Look we’re getting you the World Cup” cards for now, and hope that the world economy trends upwards over the next year so they can call for a “Steady as she goes – Don’t rock the boat” election.
It won’t actually keep them in power but it might limit the damage.
I find the “enemy class” thesis more and more compelling. As an example, I noticed a letter in today’s Times from Amnesty International chief Kate Allen, complaining about the low rate of convictions for rape in Britain.
Needless to say, guilty rapists deserve severe punishment. But I’m curious as to whether or not an Amnesty International representative has ever written a letter to a national newspaper condemning low conviction rates for murder, GBH, burglary, or many other crimes.
Seems kinda like the NSPCC’s support for the Lisbon Treaty. Large charities are a new arm of the leftist state.
Oh, the Enemy Class thesis is right on the money.
It’s the Enemy Class who rule us. They decide what laws we shall have, and how we shall be allowed or required to behave, and so on. It’s they who engineer consent. The politicians are just the front men, sort of. This pantomime about whether men in tights should stay or go is an utter distraction. The power isn’t in parliament any more. It’s distributed across the enormity of the Enemy Class’s institutional base. The politicians are a part of it, but a very small part, who implement the laws required by the Class at large. They just put a “democratic” face on it.
Resign? Gorbals Mick? Don’t be silly, they’ll have to drag him out of the Speaker’s chair. Face it, he’s a lifelong trade unionist and Labour politician, and he’s on a nice little earner. This gig means pounds shillings and pence to him, so don’t expect him to do the “decent thing”, because he will truly have no idea what those words mean, though he will suspect they constitute a trap by the boss class to do a working class guy out of making a few bob.
Wrong kind of motion?
I’d give him the right kind of motion,
Of the huge and smelly bowel kind, right in his greedy fat kisser.
Even Ester Ranson has thrown her hat into the ring, to be the next elections Martin Bell.
The ship has already sunk, and the rats are swimming despirately for the shore.
I just got back from Turkey. We had a good satellite package. Nothing on the Turkish or the Russian feeds for at least the first week that the Telegraph were breaking the story.
Little on CNN or Sky either, until the second week.
Took bloody yonks for BBC Worldwide to get their head out of their ass and stop banging on about the Indian Elections every five minutes too.
They tentatively got there in the end though.
Some French guests at the resort I was staying at, were thoroughly bemused by the whole thing.
They expect their Politicians to be on the make and larger than life, however useless they are, and have thought that way ever since the Revolution.
There’s a another WSJ articlein today’s edition.
C-Span also put on the BBC discussion on tonight – live.
But – heh – we got our own problems!
That “got” was dialect – not grammar
Our local NZ (granny) Herald has the story…
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/world/news/article.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10573218
If your speaker goes does that mean the pong will subside ?
Better to keep the old turd in place isn’t it, and let the whole lot of them get the chop permanently later…
Der Spiegel: (Link)
El Pais: (Link)
As I noted at my blog today Oliver Cromwell’s words when he threw out the Rump Parliament seem remarkably fitting.
I have mentioned George Thomas MP, later Viscount Tonypandy and one of the best Speakers of the House in the 20th century, before in these pages.
He was a neighbour and friend of my family.
He and Mam bought a little bungalow in King George the Fifth Drive in Cardiff in 1950, and lived there for the rest of his life.No snout in the trough for him.
He was also gay, and was being blackmailed at one point. Friends had to lend him the money to pay the bastards off.
He was an honourable man. He was also against Devolution and the EU.
He told me just before he died that he would not have voted for NuLab, which he thought of as Tory lite, and said that he would have voted UKIP.
If he were still alive today, he would have died of shame as to what his Party had done to this country.
I fear we will never find a politician of his calabre, of any party, again.
It’s not really surprising that the foreign media are giving this secondary attention at best.
Unlike the British public, they are well aware that the real power lies in Brussels. The UK’s provincial parliament does not matter much in the big scheme of things.
The fact that this is unprecedented and occurred so quickly surprises me. Taking the poison pill was the right thing to do.
Check out Redstate’s take on the matter:
http://www.redstate.com/erick/2009/05/19/breaking-speaker-of-the-house-to-resign/
Interesting contrast.
A quote from the Redstate article Eric posted above:
“. . . in fact, the Queen is said to be looking into dissolving the House without the advice of her government . . .”
Does that mean the Queen is the one calling for new elections? (I’m not very conversant with parliamentary government procedures.) Is that a likely scenario? Has anyone else heard this rumor?
Nothing will come of it. It’s just another way for the lonely and forgotten Britons to get their mugs on Sky News or in the Mirror proclaiming their righteous indignance. This is merely another Dianna like distraction from the real problem of uncontrolled immigration from the vibrant Muslim countries and other culturally interesting areas like Nigeria or Ghana. Nothing will happen until most people feel that their lives or the lives of their kin are actually in danger. I still hope to see the stiff upper-lipped marching through the night with torches and ancient wooden farm tools.
Laird, this rumour appears to be floating around, but it may be just wishful thinking. The Queen certainly has the theoretical right to dissolve parliament, constitutionally. It would probably provoke some kind of constitutional crisis if she did.
Constitutionally, the parliament is “her parliament” and they are just her advisors. Supposedly, the Queen still passes laws, which is why she has to sign every one- giving it the “royal assent”. And it is she who, in theory, decides who will be Prime Minister, by “asking” the most likely candidate, which is normally the leader of the majority party. But it’s all precedent. The Queen is theoretically our ruler. In practice, it’s expected she’ll sign every law and so on, and only dissolve the parliament when she is asked to do so by the Prime Minister.
The point is, things right now are such that she probably could dissolve the parliament off her own bat, and be supported by most of the population,which is probably a situation unprecedented in recent centuries. There’d be an interesting situation if the parliament refused to be dissolved. The armed forces swear fealty to the Queen, not parliament…
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