There is a major Labour whipping operation going on as I write. Tommy McAvoy, the thuggish Deputy Chief Whip, has been sitting with an earpiece in his ear listening to the Today Programme and is now going round the Commons breakfast rooms telling every Labour MP he can find that the attacks on the Speaker are from southern, middle class English snobs on a Scottish working class Speaker. However, Labour MPs have just come back from their constituencies and may have a better idea of the public mood than Mr McAvoy. Few of them will be brave enough to tell him, though.
Another figure just spotted in a Commons corridor looking rather disconsolate is the Clerk to the Commons, Malcolm Jack. As well he might.
65 comments:
"...telling every Labour MP he can find that the attacks on the Speaker are from southern, middle class English snobs on a Scottish working class Speaker."
He must have read Yasmin Alibaba's column in the 'Independent' this morning!
Still, when all you have is a hammer, etc. ;)
"the attacks on the Speaker are from southern, middle class English snobs on a Scottish working class Speaker"
These people really are thick aren't they?
I listened to Today on this and it's rapidly deteriorating into pure class warfare. Martin's Labour pal was highly predicatable - Scotch, ignorant and hopelessly out of touch - just like Martin, sadly.
Can they not see what is blatantly apparent to almost everyone outside that this Speaker is done. Is there nobody that can go to Michael Martin and insist in the manner of his predecessor that "Time's Up"?
YOUR alright Jack!
Ho ho, another misjudgement by Brown. If he saves the discredited Speaker, he'll be tarnished by association and will pay the price come election time.
Martin should go straight away. If Labour try to hold on to him then they will collapse any vestiges of their chance to be re-elected. That Labour whip is deluded, Notherners are seething about this.
Just think back to all those MPs who called benefit claimants scroungers and cheats, and called Bankers greedy. It makes my blood boil. We need a General election now to clear the troughers out.
Speaking as southern, middle classs snob (and proud of it), the sooner we tell these Scottish class warriors to go to blazes and stop them spending our grandchildrens' inheritance the better.
How do the Labour Whips square that line of thinking with the affection felt towards Betty Boothroyd? The fact that she did a brilliant job and is held in high regard both in and outside of the House shows that class isn't and wasn't the issue.
Why does the joke Speaker always, always resort to a class chip on his shoulder.
"Oh woe. I am but a humble welder from the arse end of town. Please don't beat me master."
The Tories may well be Nobs, but the labour whips are definitely Knobs.
Typical. They've lost the arguement and now are throwing the 'racist' weapon of mass destruction. Idiots. No wonder everyone south of Hadrian's wall thinks it's all our fault. Och aye the noo!
Out of curiosity, when has a whip not been described as “thuggish”? It seems to go with the territory.
Those 'southern, middle class English snobs' also voted in the Welshman George Thomas, son of a miner.
Labour whips put Martin there - against all previous convention - now they want to keep him there.
What a surprise.
BTW - the news about the resignation of Victor Blank just serves him right for listening to Gordon Brown. Amazingly it seems that this merger might unravel. Yet another example of whenever Gordon Brown gets a 'clever' idea it turns into a disaster.
And another BTW - what happened to deflation? Brown stood up in parliament and said 'he does not understand - the real problem is deflation' - another bad idea. We will be facing an inflation problem before the year is out.
And that will destroy more of taxpayers money than any expenses claim. When will we get back to 'normal service'?
The last refuge of failed socialism- an appeal to class war.
So dated and so pathetic
This working class Glaswegian thinks Martin has been horrific and should go.
He has never been up to the job. Certain people wanted him to be remembered as the first Catholic speaker since the reformation. Instead people will remember him as the first awful Catholic speaker since the Reformation. Hardly an advert.
No class war there then.
This seems to be a story to be taken with a pinch of salt, but if true, then its a very foolish move
Speaker Martin has been very partisan. Effectively, so closely is he identified with Brown, this is a vote of confidence in the government.
William Hague said:
“We would have a free vote on our side if there was a vote of no confidence in the speaker,”
That seems right, this is ostensibly a parliamentary matter, not for the Executive to be whipping as if it is a matter of delivering government policy. But the Labour whips can hardly declare Martin is Brown's man. Though it would be a more effective line than 'attack on working class Scot'. That brings up all sorts of bad feeling about too many of them running Westminster for the English to stomach anyway.
"Is it because I is Scotch ?"
telling every Labour MP he can find that the attacks on the Speaker are from southern, middle class English snobs on a Scottish working class SpeakerIf that is true, and I doubt it today, then it shows how cretinous Labour MPs and supporters are.
They really are out of touch. The Speaker, and everyone else in Parliament - are most certainly not working class. They are stupid if they think so.
I am and think he is shameful. He has chips on both shoulders. He hates the English. The Tories allowed this to fester for the sake of clinging onto 1 Scottish MP. This is what happens when you allowed the Scots to change the equality status of MPs and made the English 2nd class citizens both in Parliament and in the UK.
If he doesn't go, there will be hell to pay from the people. We've had enough.
As ye sow....
Or to put it another way, how is it that no one other than Labour hacks from the arse end of Scotland will come to his defence? Foulkes, McAvoy, Sheridan - will England not speak up for its Speaker? Has he no defender in the Lib Dems or the Conservatives? Or for that matter, Labour south of Lanarkshire?
Did anyone catch Jim Sheridan's interview this morning on The Today Programme? It would appear that only Scottish MPs and commentators are defending Michael Martin. Jim Sheridan's ignorant comments spoke volumes. Listen here and judge for yourself.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/today/newsid_8055000/8055066.stm
I suppose the only good thing is that the longer he stays then the more damage he is doing to Labour.
Unfortunately he also damages Parliament.
Rab C Nesbitt, North and South of Hadrian's Wall is England. Prick.
Don't you dozey bastards know the borders of your own English country? God Help us.
Its a very simple equation.
If MPs don't oust him they bare voting for the man who helped create the mess they are in and the electorate will see it as such - an attempt to vote for the status quo and against change and exposure. It just shows how locked into the Westminster bubble, how out of touch and how unelectable they are.
I really do think that this has the capacity to now develop into a constitutional crisis. The Governmnet has no legitimacy left. It has debased our position abroad, the economy, the currency and now Parliament.
It's now time to pull the plug on Brown and this shower. If Labour whip to keep the Speaker in then Cameron and Clegg should go nuclear. Expose what has happened. Make it clear that Labour are working to prevent reform and to cover up. Pull their parties out of the House refuse to return and demand an election on a Reform ticket. Tell the electorate that this Government has lost all legitimacy and they must have a vote now to clean up the mess - economic social and political
Spot on Tommy McAvoy as a lot of the above comments prove.
Oh yes and it was very noticible that all those supporting the speaker today were Scots.
I'll say one thing for Gordon Brown: you know exactly what he's going to do next on any issue. If there's a chance to do the decent and courageous thing by parliament country he will do the opposite. Every time.
Is he really going to try and brazen it out after all that has happened? Utterly unbelievable.
chippy chippy chippy.excellent these people are reverting to type.they are finished for a generation.
"Two-Minute Hate"
I think there is a class issue with respect to current attacks on Speaker Martin, although I am not claiming that these are the only or prime reason for his problems.
At this stage though, quite a lot of MPs have in interest in the Speaker becoming the focus of public anger.
Gordon Brown seems to have done nothing wrong himself, at least with regard to his expenses expenses, but as leader of the government and the largest party, he is probably being hurt worst.
Even the more politically agile David Cameron and Nick Clegg both have problems with the perceived integrity of their MPs.
There has been so much information released in the past eleven days that a lot of the smaller scandals will fall in prominence. What this crisis really needs, from the viewpoint of party leaders, is a focus of public hate so that someone can be scapegoated.
The Speaker is a useful figure for them all.
http://englisheclectic.blogspot.com/2009/05/two-minute-hate.html
[Ha - word verification is "dingos"]
This Oliver Cromwell moment
campaign for an english parliament press release Monday, 18, May 2009 12:00
The UK constitution should now be purged. England should be like Scotland now have its opportunity to govern itself cleanly and honestly, and purely in the interests of the people
The National Council of the Campaign for an English Parliament, holding its bi-monthly meeting in Birmingham Bull Street meeting rooms on Saturday May 16th, re-asserted its denuntiation of the UK Parliament for its Nuremberg Nazi-like Defence of its behaviour ('we were only obeying the rules') and demanded a root and branch re-think of the Union. 'Scotland has led the way,' stated Scilla Cullen Chairman. 'It seized the opportunity to institute transparency and strict regulation of its Members' behaviour. It could only do it because it had its own Parliament independent of the Union Parliament corrupted by 300 years of embedded greed and secrecy. The time has come for a new vision of what the United Kingdom should be.Beyond any doubt England must now have the same powers of self-government, its own parliament.'
And the Council decided to remind the whole English Nation of one of the greatest moments in its history and issue the text of the great Speech of Oliver Cromwell to the Long Parliament which rings as true today as it did on April 20th 1653:
“It is high time for me to put an end to your sitting in this place, which you have dishonored by your contempt of all virtue, and defiled by your practice of every vice; ye are a factious crew, and enemies to all good government; ye are a pack of mercenary wretches, and would like Esau sell your country for a mess of pottage, and like Judas betray your God for a few pieces of money. Is there a single virtue now remaining amongst you? Is there one vice you do not possess? Ye have no more religion than my horse; gold is your God; which of you have not bartered your conscience for bribes? Is there a man amongst you that has the least care for the good of the Commonwealth? Ye sordid prostitutes, have you not defiled this sacred place, and turned the Lord's temple into a den of thieves, by your immoral principles and wicked practices? Ye are grown intolerably odious to the whole nation; you were deputed here by the people to get grievances redressed, are yourselves become the greatest grievance. Your country therefore calls upon me to cleanse this Augean stable, by putting a final period to your iniquitous proceedings in this House; and which by God's help, and the strength he has given me, I am now come to do; I command ye therefore, upon the peril of your lives, to depart immediately out of this place; go, get you out!
Make haste! Ye venal slaves be gone! So! Take away that shining bauble there, and lock up the doors. In the name of God, go!"
Contact: Michael Knowles CEP Media Unit. Tel: 01260 271139 Email: michael-knowles@tiscali.co.uk
David Miliband has said it is up to MPs to make up their own minds about the issue and the government could not be seen to be "bullying" Parliament.
Shome mistake, shurely?
Simon the Bluesman @ 10.18am - The Sheridan interview was certainly an eye-opener; clearly the same tribalism that put Martin where he is is going to come in to play to keep him there. On the same 'Today' discussion, Nick Robinson's comment about just how far the Speaker's culpability had put MPs into their present position was extremely damning.
And does everyone remember why Martin is Speaker in the first place? Because Tony Blair wouldn't countenance an independent minded MP in the job, so forced Martin's election through his legions of unquestioning lobby fodder. How they are paying now!
I too think there's a lot of class hate in this - and from some Scots towards the English. The Speaker is a disaster. Yet you defend him 'against the English on race and class grounds?
I'm a little biassed because I was brought up in Huddersfield (about 8 miles from Dewsbury) - but can you imagine what Betty Boothroyd would have done? I've never met the lady but I know many a proud Yorkshire lady of her years and ethic. It would have been polite but immediately ruthless - you always know where you are with Yorkshire lasses.
Martin Vs Boothroyd - yeah right it's snobbery indeed - nope, just an awareness of ability. I bet she's absolutely livid.
He's a sad joke and should go quickly.
But he will probably try and cling on, hoping to get to the election and his £100,000 bonus before bequeathing his parliamentary seat to his son.
The Penguin.
"Labour whips put Martin there - against all previous convention"
Actually the idea of having speakers from alternating parties is relatively new I believe. It only really started at some point after WWII.
Here is a good example of the heat being taken off the real crook at the centre of it all BROWN.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/mps-expenses/5340291/Jack-Straw-blocked-reform-of-MPs-expenses-says-former-watchdog.html
Can Brown really afford to whip this vote?
A.) Is he "allowed" too (conventionally speaking)
B.) Does he really want to be on the anti reform side right now?
For some reason "Caesar wife must be above suspicion"
The very fact that it is getting air time, is reason enough
I heard someone on the radio saying the main reason Labour are backing the Speaker is because they don't want a By-Election in his seat.
If so this is just so pathetic, so cowardly, so very Gordon Brown.
I despair!
Even while we are all focused on making the horrible Speaker a scapegoat (and indeed he has much goat to be scaped for) there has been a significant political earthquake elsewhere...
The Sun has called for a General Election now. The Sun only backs winners - New Labour is dead, the current expense troughing is dead, it is only a matter of how much stench the rotting corpse will create before it is safely buried. The fate of the Speaker is but a small part of that decomposition.
Fine, if Labour wants to save the Speaker then let them. All that will happen is that the full fury of the electorate will be unleashed at them come 2010.
Paul Halsall ... yes there is a class issue with Martin. The working class thinks he's a totally despicable piece of #### that has no class or morals whatsoever. To use 'working class' as a description of Martin is an affront to the 'working class'. He may get away with his behaviour in the HOC but if he'd been doing this as the head of a union with their funds and members he'd be more than verbally attacked.
they obviously haven't learnt that playing the 'toff' card doesn't work anymore
and george thomas, bernard weatherill and betty boothroid were class acts not working class/upper middle class acts.
Maybe he should take the hint and go back to Scotland and rot along with the rest of the New Lab project?
He's even put the jinx on Celtic now!
The attacks on Michael Martin are nothing to do with class, they are to do with competence and honesty.
Er, what time will Gorbals Mick be reading his suicide note? I just have to 'be there'.
The defence of Martin by a gaggle of his Glaswegian mates is an accusation of racism whereas the accusations are of incompetence, bias and obduracy.
Would the same crew rush to the defence of an English Speaker? I hope not. Nobody should be above the law, nobody should be immune from criticism, nobody protected against dismissal. Monarchs have been dethroned, dictators hanged, Presidents impeached. We cannot tolerate a sacred cow that is protected against all legal and political actions.
A prime minister or government can survive (just about) with the support of 51% of the House. The Speaker needs close to 100% support - if he is only supported by Labour members, he may win the vote, but he is a partisan figure, and therefore inappropriate.
If memory serves me right, any criticism (mild by current standards) of Speaker Thomas or Speaker Wetherall came from their own party, as the expected favours didn't come. The Tory toffs didn't look down on the minor's son. And Betty Boothroyd was actually elected by a parliament with a large Tory majority.
This is ridiculous. The Speaker must have the support of the whole House. Lets say 100 MPs voted against him: he would have to go. It doesn't matter if the majority is still behind him. He cannot do his job without universal support. The opportunistic Nick Clegg has forced this to a conclusion and a good thing too.
Statement at 2.30. Sky etc. think 3.30 but they haven't read the Commons order paper.
Speaker trying to sneak the statement out to an empty house of Commons.
Lets be clear the English are fed up with second rate Scots politicians who have bullied their way into office, and then turn out to be incapable of carrying out the responsibilities of those offices.
Why don't English Labour MPs stand up for English rights instead of being brow beaten by the tartan thugs in the Labour party ?
Someone once accused me of unfair comment when I referred to the disproportionate level of powers in the hands of Scottish Labour MPs at Parliament calling them Gordon Brown's "Scottish Mafia".
Reading Ian's observations on the thuggish antics of one of them, the Labour Whip Tommy McAvoy, my guess is today I would be judged guilty of gross understatement.
The thing about these Scottish Labour MPs is that they nearly all come to the Westminster Parliament with the most enormous chip on their shoulders. They think everyone, including the southern English evidently, are out to do them down.
It is this class war paranoia that means the expense issue cannot be resolved in the febrile atmosphere of this poisonous Parliament especially as two of the most paranoid amongst the Scottish MPs are Michael Martin and Gordon Brown.
General election now, please.
The one thing wrong with England is Scots.
I live in Carlisle.
The working class can kiss my ass
I've got the Speaker's job at last
icarus: Nice try, but Speaker's Statements are made after question time, therefore at 3.30.
I doubt you'll bother to correct your post, though.
If there was anyone insulting to the Scottish working class it would be Michael Martin himself.
I wish the cameras would leave his house and take a good look around his constiuency, where a member of my family lives. It is impoverished and Martin does nothing to improve or help the area. So when Labour waffle on about working class this and that they should remember that the Speaker claimed more on his wife's taxi jaunts than some of his constituents have to live on in a year.
Listened to Today and made my first every political donation - to the SNP. Let's cut these Muppets free to dig their own grave.
Tommy McAvoy, another of the Scottish mafia presumably.
He and similar tribal oafs are why Parliament is held in such contempt.
The expenses don't help, but the thugs surrounding Brown are beyond parody.
Memories of happy schooldays in Northumberland, where peers born north of the border were "obtuse angles" and those of the south were "acute angles".
Guess who were the most argumentative?
I seem to remember that some MPs won quite a bit of money betting on Mick to become speaker when he was first elected.
Are we to have some kind of repeat? What are the odds on him staying on after the next election?
I think I'll contact William Hill.
What is even more depressing is that when he finally does go he'll be "rewarded" with a peerage. That will enable him to carry on troughing and "lording" it over everyone else.
I don't know what Malcolm Jack has got to be disconsolate about. His worldwide multimillion pound property portfolio must give him a great deal of satisfaction.
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