Despite his cynical attempts at buck-passery, the heat’s still not off Michael Martin. Numerous MPs across the House are thought to be, at best, underwhelmed – and, at worst, disgusted – by his actions before, during and after the police raid on Damian Green’s parliamentary office. A survey of MPs by the Beeb puts some numbers on the discontent: of 130 Parliamentarians, 32 said they have no confidence in the Speaker, against 56 who still have confidence in him. On a separate question, 50 thought Martin culpable over the search of Green’s office.
One thing that may have been holding back Martin’s detractors – and even those 56 who apparently have confidence in him – is the widely held supposition that he’ll step down at the next election. They’d better think again. According to the Sunday Times, Martin is prepared to stand for a third term as Speaker. It would be a shameless move, but who can really blame him? A third term would see him run unopposed for his constituency seat, and he’d get that generous £78,575 on top of his MPs’ salary for another four years.
It’s up to his detractors – and particularly his Labour detractors – to kick up enough of a fuss that his re-selection becomes politically impossible. Then again, I’m not sure Martin would take political impossibility into account…
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