Mr Speaker Should Go

Commons speaker Michael Martin has once again shown that he is not competent to fulfill the role he holds. Not content with throwing away crucial rights and privileges of parliament by allowing the police, in an operation driven wholly by the wishes of the Labour Party, to search the offices of a Conservative MP, he now attacks MP's who have criticised their colleagues for having snouts in the trough. Does the man not realise that it is not the disclosures in the newspapers which damage Parliament but the fact that he and his team have allowed MP's to pursue such self-serving greed in the first place? It's no good blaming the messenger when the message makes him uncomfortable. Parliamentry staff should have stopped these abuses before they ever began, and Mr Martin cannot escapte the fact that this all happened on his watch.

Previous Speakers of the House have risked imprisonment and even death to protect the integrity of Parliament. Mr Martin seems to be pursuing a one man crusade to drag it into the mud. If he had any integrity whatsoever he would have resigned over his previous errors, but his latest outburst today must surely convince even his closest friends that he has to go, and to go now.