My view: This parliament needs more than just a new Speaker. It needs a radical shake-up. These people – 'our representatives' – don’t so much represent the people, but themselves; it’s not so much a case of ‘of the people, by the people, for the people’, but of the toffs, by the toffs, for the toffs! . ‘Our representatives’ don’t listen to the concerns of the electorate; rather, they treat the electorate with contempt. But then, isn’t this typical of the snobby British way? The mentality that dictates that only the toffs' opinions are worth anything.
Westminster has been shown to be rotten; it is rotten to the core. We need far more than a new Speaker. That is but one change that is needed. As the old saying goes: One swallow a summer does not make. Likewise, one change in parliament hardly constitutes a ‘revolution’. Perhaps we ought to ask our French brothers and sisters about the true nature of revolution. They have far more experience in such matters than we.
And while we’re at it… Where’s that written Constitution? It’s high time we had one. It’s more than overdue. – ©Mark
THE TELEGRAPH: The resignation of Michael Martin as Speaker marks the latest stage of a very British revolution. While his departure has been precipitated by his fumbling and inadequate response to this newspaper's disclosures about MPs' expenses, it reflects a collapse of public faith in the political system that has been evident for some time. Over the past 12 years we have seen a Government with an overwhelming parliamentary majority turn the Commons into a cipher for often perverse decisions. It has burdened the Commons and the country with pointless and even dangerous legislation. People feel their political representatives are aloof and arrogant. Now, in addition, they think they are venal, too. In a characteristically British way, we have all put up with this for far too long – there have been no marches, no riots, no clashes with the police. The public has now decided it is time for change: its fury has forced apologies, repayments, suspensions and resignations; constituency parties are threatening deselections; MPs are voluntarily deciding to stand down; the Speaker has been forced out, for the first time in 300 years.
When he was elected on October 23, 2000, Mr Martin said: "I thank the House for its confidence in me. I pray that I shall prove worthy of that confidence and that all of us will maintain the high tradition of this place." He was living proof of Thomas Rainsborough's dictum during the Putney Debates in 1647 that "the poorest he hath a life to live as the greatest he". Born into poverty in a Glasgow tenement, Mr Martin had risen to become the First Commoner of the Land. It is his tragedy, and that of Parliament, that he could not live up to the expectations placed in him. Indeed, the manner of his election contained the seeds of his downfall: it was, in essence, a political stitch-up whereby an MP for the governing party was installed in the chair through the mechanism of a massive Labour majority, when parliamentary convention suggested that an Opposition MP would have been more appropriate.
Not only was Mr Martin the wrong choice; he turned out to be a catastrophic one as well. His fate is symbolic of the rottenness of a political system that was once the envy of the world. That system now lies broken and demoralised. With its sovereignty already dissipated by the power of the European Union, the role of the House in scrutinising legislation has been further undermined by the placing of time limits on all debates; the hours it sits have shrunk, the chamber is often virtually empty, and MPs routinely fail to articulate the concerns and aspirations of the people who elect them. Westminster has sunk into a slough of despond. The dwindling turnout at successive elections is testament to what the country thinks of the system. Mr Martin, as Speaker, has presided over this sorry shambles. >>> Telegraph View | Tuesday, May 19, 2009
