Speaker Michael Martin to make statement

The Speaker of the House of Commons is due to make a statement at 3.30 this afternoon. So will he do the honourable thing and resign now, say that he will leave his post at the next General Election or not give any indication of resigning at all. The fact that there is a motion down, signed by several prominent MPs, for him to go is indicative of the loss of confidence the H of C has in him. Even if such a motion gets debated but defeated his moral authority will be totally damaged if a significant number of members want him to go. With Martin we should remember he tried to make the Sergeant at Arms the scapegoat when the police were let in to arrest an MP and he also spent huge amounts of taxpayers money in the courts to try and thwart the release of expenses details under the Freedom of Information Act. Add in the unwarranted and personal attacks on MPs Kate Hoey and Norman Baker and the fact that he consistently allows Gordon Brown to not answer questions at PMQs and it can be seen that he is not fit to continue in office. How can he continue in post when he is part of the problem so far as the population's seething anger with our parliamentarians is concerned?

As I understand things he can get a golden handshake of £100,000 if he stays till the next general election - which could be a year away. So a positive disincentive to resign right now. Prior to the release of all the damaging revelations by 'The Daily Telegraph' I had always believed that Brown would wait till the last moment to go to the country. But what happens if Labour come fourth in the European and Council elections on 4th June and his party makes his continuance as Prime Minister untenable, or what happens if he has a complete nervous breakdown. Let us say that the affable former postman Alan Johnson were to be slotted into that position, such is the feeling of the electorate at the moment that he would have no option but to call an election just as soon as possible. I think Mr Johnson would find it well nigh impossible to reverse Labour's fortunes in just a month or two.

With all the shenanigans of our MPs hogging the headlines a visitor from Mars might not be aware that we are also in the worst economic crisis since the Second World War, that we are losing service personnel in an almost unwinnable war in Afghanistan and that in the next decade or so we might well face a shortfall in essential food and energy supplies. We are at a crossroads so far as our parliamentary system is concerned. Will we see a number of independents on the ballot papers as anti-sleaze candidates like Martin Bell had previously done. I think that is quite likely to happen and would be welcome.