Not the man for the job

In December last year, I expressed my view on Mick Martin's fitness for purpose as Speaker of the House of Commons and found it wanting. There has been more evidence over the last week of Martin's unsuitability for his role, first in the way he handled the expenses debate last week, which could have been called manipulative at best. I felt that he connived to achieve a result the government wanted last week and failed to show even handedness in the way he intepreted motions.



Now this week he flew into something of a rage because people criticised the way he handled that very debate. He seems to have no conscience about being a major player in the great expenses debacle just a whiny defensiveness about any suggestion that he might have been less than competent in the way the whole thing was handled.






And as Nick Robinson says on his blog, on a day when the mood was to show a little humility about expenses excesses, not a word of apology from the Speaker. I do believe it is time he was replaced, in the interests of Parliament.