George Kerevan: Grudge-bearing Speaker Michael Martin must go

Published on Wednesday 13 May 2009 22:05

HERE is a question: why does Michael Martin command such support and affection on the Labour back-benches?

Tom Harris, the down-to-earth MP for Glasgow South who writes a witty blog, is a great fan. Mind you, Mr Harris is also a self-confessed science fiction buff. Tam Dalyell, nobody's fool, also thinks highly of the Speaker.

Mr Martin has provoked a political row this week by using his position to make an intemperate public attack on two MPs with an honourable record of trying to expose the parliamentary expenses scam. His conduct was anything but impartial.

He had just asked the Metropolitan Police to investigate the leak of these expense claims to a national newspaper. Labour MP Kate Hoey rose to say that she didn't think the police should be called in. "Isn't it an awful waste of resources? Will the public not feel, whatever it's meant to be, to be a way of hiding …"

Ms Hoey didn't get any further. A tetchy and sarcastic Mr Martin interrupted: "I listen to you often when I turn on the TV at midnight; when I hear your public utterances and your pearls of wisdom on Sky News. It's easy to talk then."

This particular member of the public agrees with Ms Hoey. Diverting the police to chasing leaks of information that were due to be published anyway (albeit in a sanitised form) is just spite. And it certainly smacks of trying to hide information from the electorate. So why was the Speaker so angry at Ms Hoey?

Because it was the same Michael Martin who raised the court action (using 100,000 of your money) to try to block the publication of the MPs' expense claims under the Freedom of Information legislation. Fortunately he lost. But it is well known, even among his friends, that the Speaker is a politician who bears grudges.

Note also that the Commons Fees Office which handles the now infamous claims is under the responsibility of … er, the Speaker. The hapless official directly in charge of the Fees Office is one Andrew Walker, whose degree is in "ancient near eastern studies". Mr Walker is reputed to have warned the Speaker five years ago that claims were getting out of hand. He got the post after the Speaker had a major difference of opinion with Peter Grant Peterkin, the Serjeant at Arms (head of parliamentary protocol and security). Mr Peterkin was given his P45. Commons officials who fall out with the Speaker rarely last long.

The other MP at the sharp end of the Speaker's petulance was Norman Baker, the Liberal Democrats' transport spokesman whose claim for a bike was actually turned down by the Fees Office. If he'd claimed for a chauffeur, it would have been a different matter. Mr Baker was urging the early release of the entire expenses list when Mr Speaker, robes billowing, cut him off: "Another individual member who is keen to say to the press whatever the press wants to hear!"

The spat on Monday with Kate Hoey and Norman Baker seems to have been the last straw for some MPs and the Speaker is likely to face an unprecedented vote of no confidence next week, unless there is some last-minute diplomacy behind the scenes.

Again the question: why has Michael Martin – intemperate, partisan and grudge-bearing – lasted this long as Speaker, a post that is supposed to stand above politics and guard the reputation (and functioning) of representative democracy?

Mr Martin's secret is that he knowingly protects the interests and privileges of back-bench MPs, particular Labour members, at the Westminster club. He is one of them and has never pretended to be anything else. He rose through the Glasgow Labour mafia, which depends (even now) on networking and quid pro quos – classic machine politics based on handing out state subsidies. Mr Martin's prize was a safe Glasgow parliamentary seat, which he has held since 1979. (His son, Paul, now has the equivalent Holyrood seat, meaning the Speaker is not without influence at home.)

Mr Martin knows how to play the system. Once in the Commons, he spent 15 years chairing various dull administrative committees before becoming Deputy Speaker for another three and a half years. On the right of the party, he cultivated links to the leadership: he was unpaid private secretary to Denis Healey from 1980 to 1983. When he became Speaker in 2000, outsiders were surprised. But Mr Martin was only cashing in the political IOUs he had assiduously collected over the previous two decades. Remember: you don't get unless you deliver.

Mr Martin is no fool. The Speaker's post is one of the most important constitutional offices in the land. He chooses who will speak, what amendments are debated, in which order, and which are designated a "finance" bill – the technical term that prevents the Lords from blocking a piece of legislation. Even prime ministers have to be careful how to deal with a Speaker, especially one who has spent his time trying to protect the secrets of the back-benches. Getting rid of Mr Martin is easier said than done.

But Mr Martin is now out of his political depth. Not because he is a sheet-metal worker with a broad Glasgow accent. Of previous speakers, George Thomas came from a poor Welsh mining family and Betty Boothroyd was a former Tiller Girl. Speaker Martin is in trouble because the anachronistic British parliament that he represents is now in crisis, and like the captain of the Titanic, he is going down with it. Unfortunately, he does not seem to have noticed the iceberg even now.

One thing that ten years of the Scottish Parliament have produced is a different approach to representative politics. Unlike Westminster, it is based on the sovereignty of the people rather than the sovereignty of the elected members. Holyrood, for all its faults, was deliberately devised to be transparent and allow for a day-to-day interaction with civil society through committees and petitions. Mr Martin represents the antithesis of this new politics. He should go.