Ditch Martin – but don’t forget about the other bad apples

Another thought about the Speaker’s performance: it was so utterly disastrous that David Cameron really does have to join the calls for him to go.  So far, Tory frontbenchers have been relatively cautious when talking about Martin’s suitability for the role – their strongest comments came courtesy of William Hague – but it’s making less and less political sense for them to maintain that approach.  In the current environment – no, in any environment – they shouldn’t risk creating the impression that they’re ambivalent about this major roadblock to parliamentary reform.

But I would repeat that, amid all the justified anger over the Speaker’s incompetence and arrogance, he shouldn’t be made the sole fall-guy for this whole mess.  Yes, he cultivated a rotten system.  But it took some equally rotten MPs to exploit it.