New post: Speaker resignation is a convenient sideshow http://bit.ly/eQoo3

If Mr Cameron thinks this is the end of it, I’m sure he has another thought coming.

The best they could do re. voting reform is to hold a referendum on the same day as the election. Problem is that, first, it’s about a dozen years too late to fulfil that commitment; second, it’s hard to see Brown going for it. (Toynbee, by contrast, is convinced it’s just case of Alan Johnson +’people power’= a fairer voting system.)

PS: Douglas Hogg has decided to jump before he was fed to the man-eating sharks in his moat.

“But it was also very convenient for the Tories to move the focus move to a detested Labour figure that could carry the can for everyone”

Take your anti-Tory blinkers off. It was the Lib Dems that led the Speaker out chorus. Douglas Hogg has resigned and I think a lot more will follow, especially the ones who can survive without the hassle. Labour MPs will cling on because they are useless nomarks outside politics (a bit like bloggers).

Is he going to allow local people to deselect MPs who have been caught scamming the system?

I hope so.

Though to be fair to Gove he held a public meeting yesterday to explain / excuse himself.

I would love to see Nick Brown do that in Newcastle!

Labour MPs will cling on because they are useless nomarks outside politics (a bit like bloggers).

Not as useless as a Tory troll who comes here every day to be ridiculed.

Have to say, Sunny, this is as tribal a post as I’ve read.

The only thing you are correct about is that Cameron is not going to put a sure thing at risk by discovering principles at this stage. Why would he?

Except I suspect he is not sufficiently rooted in reality to have spotted the strength of the tsunami- the tidal wave of loathing and disgust felt by so many following the glimpse we have been afforded inside that tin of maggots.

Had he done so, he would be acting rather differently.

“It was the Lib Dems that led the Speaker out chorus.”

A Tory MP, and Tory MPs, started the motion of no confidence. Nick Clegg became the most prominent supporters, yes, but the Tories led the parade.

Except I suspect he is not sufficiently rooted in reality to have spotted the strength of the tsunami- the tidal wave of loathing and disgust felt by so many following the glimpse we have been afforded inside that tin of maggots.

Oh, he is and he has – that’s why he’s desperately trying to force an election now. With the balance of new candidates against incumbent MPs favouring the Tories at the moment, he stands to benefit; but if Labour deselects a signficant number of incumbents, that advantage disappears.

Neither Campbell nor Huhne abused the system. Just sayin’.

Well, a tory backbencher began the process yes. But backbenchers from across the house became involved. I’m not sure why “the tories” are any more responsible as a whole than labour- neither of their party leaderships became involved, neither made any effort to stop their backbenchers. I don’t think its fair to call it an initative from anyone side of the house- there was general agreement as to Martins rubbish nature.

Cameron has now said that local associations may be told to hold local reselection meetings on the issue. Whereas Labour are still having to go through NEC rather than making decisions locally. So looks like its still labour playing catchup on the issue, contrary to the entire post.

Furthermore, the last comment about the tories muddled agenda makes no sense. How is it any more muddled than labour agenda? Labour is rushing to fire cabinet members where tories aren’t now? Labours handling of the issue is less of a mess? Or is it just that Labour don’t even offer a bad alternative so hopeless is their handling of the matter?

And no, I don’t support the tories.

Cameron’s going to milk this for all it’s worth even though his party is no better than Brown’s but Labour is in charge and they deserve what they get.

You seem to imply that the LibDems are blameless and that no LibDems have been abusing expenses. Are you sure about that?

If so, wouldn’t the best response be to publish all their expenses immediately, thus actually setting a good example? And it even has the advantage of being something useful you can do without needing anyone else to co-operate.

I just can’t get worked up about the whole shoddy business. Why?

Because as much as it is wrong what Mps have been claiming for, the total amount of Mps expenses, even if you add up the last 5 years is still a drop in the bucket to what this country has wasted on the Iraq war. I also fail to believe that things were any better years ago or will be in the future. We have no idea who was backing the Tory party in the 1980’s so we can not prove if favours were done in exchange for donations. I also don’t think this is any worse that Tory cabinet Ministers privatising state assets and then getting nice juicy jobs on the boards of the companies they helped privatise.

I also think that it is pretty revolting watching Journalists lecturing about false claims on expenses. They are the biggest free loaders going. Of course, they will claim that it is not tax payers money which is a fair point. However, the next time some Business man is complaining about tax maybe he should look at his own dodgy expenses claims of his staff.

As for the Speaker, well, the Tories have wanted rid of him from the start because he did not fit in with their snobby view of who should be speaker.

But overall I have a sense of distaste for the whole hysterical nonsense pushed by people who want a Tory govt and are using this and framing the debate against the Labour party. The idea that this is the biggest scandal of the last 300 years is risible and only goes to show the idiocy of most pundits and reporters and the bias of their Conservative sympathies. Now we are told that Ester Ranzen is going to run against a Labour MP. The Tory supporting taxpayers alliance is reporting a Labour politician to the police. If it looks like a circus it probably is a circus.

I can’t agree that the resignation of the speaker is a convenient sideshow for the Tories, it is just the latest in s a series of moves designed to get the agenda off ALL MP’s, irrespective of political party. I don’t think there is anything the Tories can gain out of the situation – they are up to their necks in it as much as the rest of them.

They all started off with limited responses, hoping that it would just be the usual storm-in-a-teacup response, whereby the public get angry for a bit and then forget all about it when the mood moves on. But when the anger not only continued but grew bigger by the day, the parties had to pull moves to try and out-do each other to try and take the ‘moral’ high ground. We had the offers to pay back, then the threats of action, then the resignations and threats of deselection. All the parties were scrabbling around to be seen as the cleanest but it became obvious they were all involved. At this point, the opprobrium that had been heaped on all MP’s was give a potential outlet in the person of the speaker.

This is a cyncial attempt by all the MP’s from all the parties to produce the most obvious scapegoat of all time, so that they can announce it was all the speaker’s fault. Unfortunately, it won’t wash. The public seem to be far too incensed to listen to any excuse from any MP and the speaker’s resignation will be overlooked as a convenient sideshow and will lead to the public demanding more. The public smell blood and have managed to have their first bite. They will be ready for more.

Cameron hasn’t got any leverage to use this whole sorry business for his own ends. All of politics is implicated – not just Labour. The vast majority of the public were fed up of Labour anyway, so any Tory attempts at politicking over this issue aren’t going to gain anything. They WERE in the box seat but they must now be getting worried that they will be dragged under with Labour, as the public show discontent with the whole sorry lot of them. Cameron (like the other leaders) will just continue to scrabble around looking for ‘an out’ but as his MP’s are just as guilty as any others, there is little scope for him to use anything as a sideshow. Any and all of the parties and their leaders, are just going to have to hope that something sticks more to one particular party but I simply don’t accept that the Tories have somehow managed to engineer a situation from which they will benefit.

I disagree with the fundamental proposition of this thread: Martin is going because he opposed the FoI requests, a proposal rejected in court, which ultimately resulted in the current revelations. Martin was the man who wanted us to be ignorant of the abuses, and thus his fall was inevitable. His heavy handedness towards Kate Hoey and Norman Baker accelerated his removal. The man with the influence to hide facts from the public had his chances for reform but declined them.

Martin’s removal does not serve in any way those MPs accused of abuse. They have already been maligned, rightly, and in a few cases, wrongly. The public has made its judgement during the drip-drip of Telegraph revelations, so booting out Martin makes no difference to the Tories. Apart from the by-election in Glasgow North East, which should be a gift to the SNP, there’ll be no benefit to any party.

In six or eight weeks, Martin will be a distant memory, and an SNP by-election victory will be in the headlines. And voters will not have forgotten about Tory MPs claiming for tree surgery and moat cleaning.

Tinter @10: “Cameron has now said that local associations may be told to hold local reselection meetings on the issue. Whereas Labour are still having to go through NEC rather than making decisions locally.”

I’ll try rewriting Tinter’s post: “Cameron has acknowledged that local associations may be instructed to review naughty sitting candidates for the next election. Labour’s NEC will review naughty sitting candidates for the next election.”

So it’s still top down management all the way. Some local parties will review (potentially dishonest) candidates, but under guidance of the central party. Local parties may not choose to deselect MPs independently of central party authorisation. Are there any local parties who will stand outside the rules and deselect? Force majeure demands that the rules change.

Do I detect, Sunny, that your focus on weening out the bad eggs of the Labour Party means you think the new rules of the house (Flipping homes and claiming for household goods banned) were a lot of hot air?

I seriously think that because Ukip will receive the pick of the protest votes, if nothing else voters have fallen out with the big three, its not just Labour that are getting a kicking here this time (unlike in the last European elections).

If the house rules change, it might just be likely that the otherwise good eggs (Ed Balls, is for me, the obvious keeper in your list) can stay. Since the voters want to give all the main players a kicking, why get rid of the good ones if a rule change can reunite the voting public with (Labour) establishment politics?

There is only one way out for these MPs. Take independent action, go over the heads of the party structures and publish all your claims. Let the debate then be about what is a reasonable claim. And that debate will be with the public and not with their support team aka constituency party or association. The party structures themselves are under scrutiny.

I found the spectacle of MPs rounding on Martin quite nauseating. He may have presided over the system, but it was them that took advantage. They will not be spared.

Bishop – oh but I’m sure he does. I look forward to seeing what he does further than simply announce their expenses will be on their website.

Though to be fair to Gove he held a public meeting yesterday to explain / excuse himself.

Doesn’t mean anything though. If Hazel Blears gets a nice reception at his constituency and does ok – would you be so forgiving? Expect not.

Neither Campbell nor Huhne abused the system.

orly? http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1180969/MPs-EXPENSES-Moral-Menzies-Campbells-10-000-renovations-London-flat.html

My point is – these people are tainted. There’s little point in trying to split hairs at this stage – after all Phil Woolas keeps saying he didn’t actually claim for those tampons they just happened to be on the receipt.

The Government crossed the line when having Martin selected in the first place: he was chosen by the whips to speak for the Government and not the House. He has been a disgrace for years, and not because he came from Glasgow etc etc, blah blah blah. This is scarcely his first scandal.

Sunny, this thread is a terrible shame. The current situation represents a terrific opportunity for independant minded politicians within parties, and even, for Independent politicians. All parties will now need to be much more responsive, and more connected to the real world and real problems.

Don’t be such a narrow-minded tribalist. For one thing, that’s Sally’s job.

I don’t quite get all those who are against any move against the speaker. Surely some MP’s did support him for self-serving reasons. However, there are a number who have not abused expenses and in fighting to have them made public have basically been campaigning against the speaker for a long time. Why shouldn’t they try to be rid of him? Also, while MP’s clearly are largely responsible, the Speaker still did an awful job and we are well rid of him (and as Whatnext said, not just on expenses).

Charlieman: Its still top down, but with Labour its top down all the way whereas the tories is only top down most of the way. Certainly labour is not in any way ahead, which is what the article implies.

Sorry, that should be support getting rid of him…

#21: The Government crossed the line when having Martin selected in the first place: he was chosen by the whips to speak for the Government and not the House.

It is convention that the government chooses who to nominate for Speaker, and all governments have chosen someone they expect to be sympathetic (sometimes more successfully than others). Other candidates can challenge the government’s choice; as far as I know, there has only been one instance where the government choice was not elected (1992).

OTOH, this government has introduced new rules for the selection of Speaker, which will be applied for the first time to choose Martin’s successor, and which go a long way to making the Speaker genuinely independent from government (not least because the Whips, of all parties, won’t know who voted for whom, and therefore won’t be able to punish MPs who didn’t back their leader’s choice).

Slightly OT.

I thought Douglas Carswell enjoyed his day in the sun yesterday.

It was obvious in all the interviews that he was accustomed to being treated like a wacky nerd by his colleagues and in some ways he came across like that. But at other moments you began to wonder who wasn’t getting it.

He was certainly the only one with any kind of positive plan.

Perhaps his time has come (certainly his timing couldn’t have been better) and I think some of his ideas on restoring democracy to a “bottom up” rather than “top down” system deserve some rational discussion

“So the fact that newspapers and TV channels are hammering in that Michael Martin is to stand down from office is almost futile. Sunny Hundal on Liberal Conspiracy calls it a “convenient sideshow” and he’s right”.

I’m not sure what’s tribal about this post. Everytime I say something nasty about the Tories I get people accusing me of being tribal – but when I say something nasty about Labourites it’s totally fine.

I stand by what I say. The removal of the Speaker is a sideshow. The real problem is still how the MPs are going to resolve their expenses – and yet the Tories are doing nothing.

Well I don’t think I’ve ever accussed you of being tribal before but this post rather is. The removal of the speaker wasn’t an especially tory initiative- if it was it would have failed. Also, Labour are doing no better- possibly slightly worse- on MP’s expenses, so a post that makes out that this is a crisis for the tories.

Labour being equally bad is not mentioned, and labour get partial credit because some of its party members are trying to do something. Certainly I would expect labour conspiracy posters to support this, but it does nothing to take away from the central parties failings.

The final paragraph uses a proposed plan for labour which has no chance of being implemented as a stick to beat tories. A more clear formulation would be to criticise both and lament that labour cannot do better than the tories, and call for them to take a lead by implementing your proposals.