The Serjeant at Arms has to go

Wilhelm

I didnt know Rab C Nesbit look a like, Gorbals Mick was in panto this year.

I love the way the buffoon puffs out his chest.

Jeremy

"Some on the left are trying to claim that she is a victim of sexism and maybe some of her critics are sexists..."

James...why fall for the diversionary tactic? You of all people...

Harriet Harman appears to be emerging from this episode with some credit....which is interesting. I won't pretend that I know a great deal about her, but at first sight she has always struck me as being just another glassy-eyed NuLabour propagandist...

Verity

"Some on the left are trying to claim that she is a victim of sexism...".

Just as those of us who loathe Obama are "racists".

Nursery taunts.

Jim

If she goes she should get Max Clifford to represent her - she'll get a healthy sum for her version of the story......

Austin Barry

Well, to be fair, when faced with Plod in an unexpected situation who is likely to force the issue? Most people will simply concede. The police are the good guys, right? No. They're now the enforcement arm of the Government. But are they 'bracing' the belligerant mosques, kicking ass in the dystopian inner cities? No, this would exemplify their inherent racism, so they act as Zanu-Labour's Praetorian Guard: dissent, after all, is an attack on the status quo. Let's have elected sheriffs. And if that means the bad guys accidentally falling down the stairs at the local nick, well, so be it. Justice is never going to be effectively administered by effete Oxbridge Judges living in Amersham or wimpy former Assistant Commissioners presenting their soapy rumps to marsupials in the Queensland rain forests. To take back the streets, to take back the country, Justice will need to wear hob-nailed boots.

Head of Legal

It's the Speaker who should go, not Jill Pay. She did nothing wrong: the police did not need a warrant, they needed the House authorities' consent, and it was quite right for her to give it. There is no rule or precedent that the House authorities refuse consent, and no good reason for them to do so - arresting an MP and searching his office in a criminal case does not breach Parliamentary privilege.

If for reasons of his own the Speaker thinks the House should withhold consent and make the police get a warrant, then he should have told Jill Pay so last week. Either he failed in his duty then, or his concern about a warrant is new, brought up after the fact in order to blame his staff. It was a cowardly statement he made today.

Dick the Prick

No she doesn't. You want a head and you're prepared to accept sweet Jill's? Pants. Sure, she was in error but not more so than those who should know better. She's a cheap scalp - if she goes, last in line.

Lee Jakeman

Let's have a General Election so that we can sack the whole miserable lot of them.

Bocephus

It's the Speaker that should go he is passing the buck but that's just the beginning, the whole thing was politically motivated run by Home Office/No. 10. It might not be Zimbabwe (yet) or the Soviet Union but this is Nixon's America.

The Laughing Cavalier

Ms Pay was out of her depth. The previous, proper, Serjeant at Arms was a retired senior army officer who knew what he was doing. He would have sent the Met packing. However, he is a gentleman, and that was unacceptable to Mr Martin. The position was downgraded and Jill Pay put in position. Now she is fulfilling her purpose as the scapegoat for Mr Martin's egregious failure.

Unsteady Eddie

If someone has carried out their duties in a way which falls short of that required, then why should any investigation into their actions deny the views of a person, on the grounds that their views are sexist?

Even if such people were to self declare as sexists, then any views they might offer, can be assessed in terms of the validity and pertinence of the particular arguments forwarded.

Such cases should provide ideal opportunity for their 'tainted' ideas to be shown in all their weakness, if indeed weak they are.

Unsteady Eddie

Oh, and that mace looks far too heavy for the lady in the photograph. One of the gentlemen should be helping her.

Mark

Ms Harman is deeply, deeply ambitious. She may have realised that the Brown/Smith line was going down badly with Labour backbenchers and that, with Brown's bounce fading, she could pick up some support for the leadership election after the general election.

GS London

Agreed with Head of Legal - the circumstances were anti-terror police turning up at parliament: what was she suppsed to do, ignore them at risk of a threat to national security?

This is exactly where anti-terror legistaltion fails: it is used where it shouldn't be to get at things not normally available.

Speaker Lentil

Quite right. Everyone knows that wearing tights is a man's job.

Andy Leeds

If the Police didn't need a warrant then why did they say they had obtained 4 warrants when in fact they had only obtained 3. Was the 4th refused ? And why did they feel they had to obtain warrants to search Mr Green's homes and his Kent office but not his Parliamentary office ?

Jonny Mac of JonnyMacsPlace

Dodgy call Mr Forsyth: you're doing what Martin wants you in the commmentariat to do, which is to blame the underling. I would certainly have no objection to Pay's going, but the ultimate responsibility is the Speaker's. Only a weak man blames his junior. It is he who should resign. Now.

Fraser

Martin and Jill Pay look and behave like the Krankies. What has become of this country? Now I don't think 1832 was a step too far but why on earth are our instutions being upheld by these creatures?

mac

Stephen Pound in his eulogy towards his friend the Speaker on 'Today' asserted, incredibly, that Harriet Harman's ambiguity is puzzling and that she's a lone voice!

Surely, the emphasis on the Speaker (who is unsackable in a Labour-dominated Commons and won't resign) and the Serjeant at Arms is a deliberate Government effort to divert attention away from Home Office and Cabinet Office ministers and their senior officials.

I hope the leaden claptrap that we'll hear later today from Ms Smith (more side-stepping and santctimony) might re-focus the spotlight, despite the opportunity that the Speaker's Wise 7 inquiry provides to Smith to kick the can down the road until the heat wears off.

And, of course, we can expect the Ministry of Truth at Wood Lane to do its best to follow whatever line the Government wishes in its patently selective reporting.

TomTom

Perhaps we should hear from the lady herself before sacrificing her to save The Speaker ?

David Bouvier

I sure as hell would get fired if the police turned up to search our office and I didn't bother to contact our corporate counsel - or in this case the Clerk - who is then responsible for deciding on the legal issue. Was the clerk was informed and didn't act - or as it seems did she not bother to inform him?

Parliament - a royal palace with its own security powers and obligations independent of the Met - needs a head of security who has to common sense to erm, check the legal position, to consider how to protect other MPs (before the name was mentioned it could have been a shared office - unless they all have their own now), to protect constituents, ensure it did not disrupt parliament etc.

A search the Palace of Westminster is NOT comparable to hunting for stolen goods in someones house.

When did the Clerk know? What did he do?

Macebearer

Ms Pay resembles a principal boy in a pantomime and appears barely capable of lifting her mace, let alone wielding it to repel intruders. Her appointment demonstrates that political correctness is out of control, and she failed in her core duty on the first occasion she was put to the test. How long, one wonders, before the current Black Rod is dismissed on the basis that he is Caucasian?

Nicholas

Agree with mac. The Speaker Martin affair is a distraction from the real plot which lies at the heart of New Labour's Home Office relationship with the police. The parroting of police operational independence merely reinforces this suspicion, especially in a relationship where Quick and Smith exchange cosy private letters.

Alfred T Mahan

Wasn't it Truman who had a notice on his desk reading 'the buck stops here'? I wonder where Gorbals Mick puts his?

Bocephus

David Bouvier

You wouldn't be fired if you informed your boss it was going to happen and he did nothing but walk away and make a cup of cocoa. The bottom line is she may be useless but she told the Speaker and he did diddly squat to prevent it happening. Why are the British media so easily sent off the trail.

Brown going on about not interfering with police enquires is ridiculous. The Home Office must have told the police it was Green who was receiving the documents as everyone new that. After all he was the one who was embarrassing them. It was the government who set the police on him.

Andy Leeds

We all knew Green had received documents. He had revealed some of their contents for God sake ! So if we knew the Police knew too. They can read Coffee House like everyone else, assuming they can read of course.

Its come to something when I agree with George Galloway on Mathew Wright this morning. He basically said the Police should not have been allowed to search the office (I think with or without a Warrant) and the Speaker has failed and should go. Here here.

Chuck Unsworth

@ Head of Legal

That may be the legal position, but Mr Speaker has quite obviously not recognised it to be so, and has made his statement. So we now have to consider not only what the legal position ought to be, but what the political position actually is.

Tim Carpenter LPUK

I think it would be sexist to suggest that criticism and accountability of the SaA should be tempered because she is a woman.

Oscar

Sexist or not Jill Pay is the fall gal and this is yet another diversionary tactic. Of course she should never have been appointed to the post in the first place but that's another matter.

David Bouvier

Bocephus - not to dwell on my career, no one has yet clarified if the clerk was informed at all.

It is astounding these people are so incompetent, that none of them had the basic common sense to (a) ask a competent lawyer or (b) or have a executive discussion on the issues before rolling over.

Incompetence? Total breakdown of management accountability? Or it was pushed through on the nod for political reasons?

While I am loathe to believe in real rather than merely political conspiracies, it is starting to seem more believable that this was a plot to get Green.

(Nascent) police state, Yeh!

Cocidius

re Alfred T Mahan query about Truman's sign, I would suggest that my fellow Glaswegian, who now has a Police protected abode in Bishopbriggs (Have I broken any terror laws in disclosing this?), has placed his sign near his integrity - somewhere safe and well out of sight.

George Laird

Dear The Laughing Cavalier

“Ms Pay was out of her depth”.

Do you mean she hasn’t the ability to read a rule book?

She cannot ask questions or consult on her job?

She cannot think on her feet?

Jill Pay should be sacked or removed to a lesser post; she has proven unworthy of trust.

“The previous, proper, Serjeant at Arms was a retired senior army officer who knew what he was doing”.

You mean he could read and had a bit of commonsense?

“He would have sent the Met packing”.

Well done that man.

“However, he is a gentleman”.

Let’s just stop with that crap, “he is a gentleman”, so does that mean working class people don’t have honour?

Is Lord Jeffery Archer a gentleman?

“and that was unacceptable to Mr Martin”.

Got prove of that by way of a statement by Martin?

Martin’s problem is that he lacks commonsense and is partisan, something that the Tories haven’t dealt with.

The Tories let the Michael Martin problem rumble on.

“The position was downgraded and Jill Pay put in position”.

Even less of an excuse for her stupidity then!

“Now she is fulfilling her purpose as the scapegoat for Mr Martin's egregious failure”.

The Tories have to get cross party support and call for the resignation of Michael Martin formally; this is not a party matter. Martin is the worst Speaker of the House in living memory and has to go.

The question is, now that the Tories have shouted the odds are they prepared to go the distance?

If the Tories cannot deal with what is a simple admin problem then what credibility can they have that they can run a country?

Yours sincerely

George Laird
The Campaign for Human Rights at Glasgow University

T. Bisse

Why not re-ask the Speaker, etal, exactly why they dissolved Major-General Peterkin?