I hear our betters the ladies and gentlemen of the press and Parliament asking, ‘Is the public really bothered about the arcane details of the Speaker’s role in all this? Do they understand?’
Our correspondent in the Bull & Bush replies in the affirmative to both questions. He has much to report:
When the Sky Sports fans drinking in the Bull & Bush turn their eyes to the Ten O'clock News, with mouths agape between swigs, they discover in themselves an unaccustomed close interest in the position and the person of the Speaker of the House of Commons...
- and when these quaffers-by-the-quart of IPA and Stella grasp that the historic and present purpose of the high office of Speaker is to uphold standards in their Parliament and so protect them from abuse by the mighty, if necessary at the cost of his own life and that the incumbent has not done so, to put it mildly;
- and when they spontaneously curse the Speaker for attacking a national treasure (above Party labels) like the sweet football fan-patron, Kate Hoey who merely said what they think;
- and when they hear that the Speaker is 'responsible' for the corrupt 'expenses system';
- and when they find out that the Speaker, more than anyone else, did everything in the power of his office, from procrastination and obfuscation to (unsuccessful) High Court action against journalists to suppress information by preventing them revealing systemic and extra-systemic abuse of their trust and theft of their money;
- and when they learn, now being closely interested in the gentleman’s career, that he sacked conscientious officials who tried to prevent the abuses;
- and when they discover that the Speaker has spent years busily feathering his nest at their expense, at a level on a par with the worst of the miscreants, and that he has threatened with the law anyone criticising him for it;
- and when the trade unionists at the bar in the old Bull & Bush hear reports of his having said ‘I have been a trade unionist all my life. I did not come into politics not to take what is owed to me’;
- and when they hear that the Speaker’s universally admired predecessor is ’appalled’ by her successor’s behaviour;
- and when, staring at a mountain of facts so appalling as to make their eyes bleed and which were carefully kept from them by the convention of not criticising the Speaker...
- they opine that the man is an out-and-out ****ing **** and chorus: 'The troughing ****er had better **** off out of it before I get hold of him.'
But Speaker Martin is not the only one at the receiving end of un-Parliamentary language down at the old Bull & Bush.
When the blokes at the bar can be heard avidly and angrily discussing Parliamentary arcana such as successive Labour Prime Ministers abusing their power in order to have a Speaker who was 'one of their own' despite his being widely regarded as inadequate to the task;
- and when they learn that these two Labour Prime Ministers forced his appointment through the House of Commons in contravention of the custom that successive Speakers are from different parties and appointed by all-party acclamation, not government fiat, and that they did so in defiance of the legitimate objections of all other parties;
- and when they learn that this Labour Prime Minister, under the pretext of defending the impartiality of the office of Speaker, has stolidly defended his Party placeman against much legitimate criticism of both his many errors of judgement and his many actions inimical to the wellbeing of people and Parliament;
- and when they remember that the Labour Home Secretary defended the Speaker when he encouraged the police to arrest and intimidate an MP from the Opposition party and then in the face of widespread outrage in the House, took the cowardly way out of blaming his subordinate, an unqualified person whom he had appointed to replace an experienced official to whom he had taken a dislike, deeming him 'a toff' - and sacked him;
- and when they remember that the Labour Prime Minister said that police invading Parliament and arresting an MP was not a matter for him but for the Speaker and that the arrested MP was at fault;
- and when they recall that the same Labour Prime Minister, when in opposition, had bragged about receiving leaks of precisely the sort which caused the Labour Home Secretary to approve the arrest of the MP in question, and that the leaks were about demeanours in her department;
- and when they learn that the Labour Prime Minister, two of his Party's Deputy Leaders (Cabinet Ministers) and his Ministers have conspired with the Speaker against the public interest (a) to perpetuate the obviously corrupt ‘expenses’ system (b) to change existing law and enact new laws, using their Commons majority and 'payroll vote', to exempt MPs from the civil and criminal laws which everyone else must obey (c) to protect even some of most egregious miscreants from public discovery and justice because they are the Labour Prime Minister’s appointees to his Cabinet;
- and when they learn that the Labour Prime Minister and the Speaker have worked together to bring Parliament into disrepute;
... then the Labour Prime Minister and his Labour government are condemned, at the bar of the Bull & Bush, in even stronger terms than those in which they condemn the Speaker.
Oh, troughing Tory toffs will have to sit in the stocks and take very rough punishment for a long while. But they are not the government. And the Tory Leader is leading the move for reform in the teeth of the Labour Prime Minister's hectoring, his risible defence of the indefensible until the enormity of it all and its consequences for him engulfed him, and his bumbling, cowardly inaction since.
The Labour Party is the worst possible case because, unlike individual Tory robber barons who were not in government office, Labour Prime Ministers, Ministers and Members of Parliament grossly abused the vast power of the governing Party to their own corrupt benefit, against the public interest.
It is clear, even to the village idiot, muttering into his pint over there in the corner of the Bull & Bush, that successive Labour Prime Ministers corruptly appointed and protected Michael Martin, the incompetent Speaker who, for eight years, has presided over, and acted vigorously to perpetuate, corruption in our Parliament, and to protect, in particular, Labour Cabinet Ministers...
Justice Secretary Straw
Home Secretary Smith
Communities Secretary Blears
former Defence Secretary and now Transport Secretary Hoon
Chancellor Darling
and other ministers (Morley, McNulty and others) and MPs.
Ministers in the Labour government are the most egregious of all the miscreants who have robbed and insulted the patrons of the Bull & Bush.
The entire Labour government should slink away before they have to face the Bull & Bush jury who consider their offences worthy not only of lamp posts, but of certain unpleasant, spike-related preliminaries before any merciful coups de grace.
Of course, the Bull & Bush is in England. Speaker Martin and Prime Minister Brown are Scots, as are many ministers in this Labour Cabinet and government. The comments of the ale drinkers at the bar regarding that coincidence are too forthright for the eyes of sensitive souls like yourself, dear reader. Suffice it to say that, certain strong opinions having been expressed, the ale and gin drinkers are now in one bar and the lager and malt drinkers in another, although they are united in their rage against their less-than-hon. and right-on abusers.
The ale drinkers are mutinous. The lager drinkers are mutinous and ashamed. All are angry. All want redress. Some want revenge. Those who have drunk a spot more than usual want actual blood.
Members of Parliament of all parties should avoid the Bull & Bush for the moment, order their beverage of choice on-line and drink it at home. In time, the anger will abate and the regulars' other business will need attending to... there will be a collective shrug. The damage to the British Parliament and Constitution may be considerable, but only time will reveal to what extent. Down in the old Bull & Bush, the normal recipients of abuse will be reinstated: Man Utd and Chelsea, Rangers and Celtic, the Australians and the French.
And Speaker Martin? He is advised to give up appearing in public altogether, as soon as possible. He should acquire a cow and some hens, retire to a croft in the Outer Hebrides and grow his own vegetables. Perhaps a mainland supermarket can arrange occasional air-drops of beverage supplies.
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