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Robed Neanderthal Michael Martin
throws tantrum over MPs' expenses
Westminster Sketch
Ann Treneman
Columnist: The Times
Filed 15 May 09
©Ann Treneman
This article was originally published in The Times on 12 MAY 2009.
It is reproduced here with the kind permission of its author and of the newspaper.
Petty. Vindictive. Hurt. Defensive. That was Michael Martin, the Speaker of the Commons, yesterday. “I know I’m in a bit of a bad mood,” he allowed afterwards. Bad mood? It was like watching a temper tantrum by a Neanderthal who’d had his club taken away. His attire didn’t help: at times, as the buffoon black robe ballooned away, he resembled an enraged parachute.
It all started so well too. Mr Martin arose from his throne chair to say that he was going — shock, horror — to hold a meeting on the subject of expenses. MPs, including Jacqui “Bathplug” Smith, nodded. Barbara Follett, the millionaire Labour MP who had charged us £25,000 for home security, was hiding behind his chair. She was alone, without even one bodyguard, and I wondered at her bravery.
But now trouble loomed in the trim form of Labour maverick Kate Hoey, swathed in a fuchsia scarf the size of Wales. She didn’t think that the police should be called in to find the leaker. “Isn’t it an awful waste of resources?” she asked. “Will the public not feel, whatever it’s meant to be, to be a way of hiding . . .”
Mr Martin interrupted. “I listen to you often when I turn on the TV at midnight when I hear your public utterances and your pearls of wisdom on Sky News. It’s easy to talk then.”
He sounded jealous. I noted Ms Hoey was actually wearing pearls. I had a vision of Mr Speaker at midnight, wearing a Wee Willy Winkie hat, throwing a buckled slipper at his TV set. Now he pointed a pudgy finger at Ms Hoey and let rip. The leaker had revealed signatures, ex-directory numbers and, the ultimate travesty, passwords. “I just say to you, it’s easy to say to the press this should not happen! Some of us in this House have other responsibilities than talking to the press!”
MPs exchanged looks. Now Norman Baker, who has campaigned long and hard on this issue, arose to mutters of irritation. He was urging the release of more information when Mr Speaker, robes swishing, cut him off.
“Another individual member who is keen to say to the press whatever the press wants to hear!” he announced, embarking on another rant, the nub of which was that Mr Baker had said in the past that the Commons authorities had done nothing on this. “It’s wrong for you to say that!” he said.
MPs just wanted it to end now. Yesterday should have been the Commons at its best, instead we were seeing it at its worst. But things can always disintegrate even further. Thus it proved when the exotic creature that is Patricia Hewitt (yes, she still exists) arose. “We clearly cannot blame the media for the situation we find ourselves in,” she said as MPs, who do blame the media and no one else, glared.
Ms Hewitt, oblivious, rabbited on: “Because it is the public who elect us, and pay for us, would you and the commission consider establishing citizen’s juries as they are called . . .”
“Ohhh!” MPs erupted as if Ms Hewitt had suggest heresy.
Ms Hewitt persevered. “One perhaps for each region to consider the matter both of our salaries and of our . . .”
This brought unrest. You could see MPs thinking: “Consult the voters? Is she mad?” The robed Neanderthal, reunited with his club, boomed: “Order! Order! I think it’s clearly time for me to move on . . .” That’s funny, lots of people say that’s exactly what he should do.
©Ann Treneman |
