More trouble in Parliament

British politics and the house of commons are facing a new problem...what to do with the commons speaker Michael Martins.

There is great pressure for him to step down from his position after his spokesman, Mike Granatt, resigned last Friday. His reason; because he was misled about the use of taxis by Mr Martin's wife, and gave the wrong information to a journalist. Apparantly Mrs Martins has used more than £4000 on taxis, an innapropriate use of the public's money, the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards is investigating this. This is only the tip of the iceberg. Mr Martins has apparently used more of the public's money innapropriately.

This is another problem British politics doesn't need, especially after the Conway problem.

Benedict Brogan from the Daily Mail comments in his blog that there is a similarity between this situation and the situation before Blair stepped down as Prime Minister. He said: "There's something of the Blair saga about the predicament Michael Martin finds himself in. When the former Prime Minister was under fire and facing calls to quit in favour of Gordon Brown, there were always those who cautioned a period of silence. Only when things were quiet and he was not under pressure, we were told, would Mr Blair agree to go. What he wanted was to be able to leave at a time of his own choosing, without appearing to be frog-marched to the exit by his enemies in the Commons and the media. Lay off and he'll do the right thing, that was the idea.
Mr Martin is in the same boat. There is no shortage of MPs, including Labour ones, who don't think much of him as a Speaker, and rather wish he would do Parliament a favour by taking his peerage and shuffling off the stage."
(Source: http://broganblog.dailymail.co.uk/2008/02/silence-and-the.html)

But with comments from members of the Commons such as "he's got a problem" the Government and other MPs don't want to make a definate decision. Gordon Brown declared he was a "very very good" speaker in the Guardian today, and David Cameron described the attack on Mr Martins as a "witch hunt". So the position of the house of commons is unclear.

But there is great pressure from the British media and the public for him to resign after this latest scandal.

There is not only a scandal with his wife's spending of the public's money. Mike Smithson said:
"This follows the row over him claiming a second-homes allowance on his constituency house in Glasgow – even though he has no mortgage on it and he is provided with what is described as a “lavish grace-and-favour apartment in the Commons"...Will he survive? I would not bet on it but you don’t get to progress in Glasgow Labour politics without being tough."
(Source: http://politicalbetting.com/index.php/archives/2008/02/24/will-martin-survive-the-expenses-row/)

This latest episode does not improve the public's faith in today's politics.