Back to HOMEPAGE Michael Martin’s ennoblement was an
irony worthy of Shakespeare
Ann Treneman
Westminster Parliamentary Sketch: The TImes
Filed 19Oct09
©Ann Treneman
This article was originally published in The Times on 14 October 2009.
It is reproduced here with the kind permission of its author and of the newspaper.
I have never seen Michael Martin in his civvies because, as Speaker, he always wore billowing black, but to chance a sight of him yesterday in the robing room of the Lords still took me aback. He seemed to fill the doorway of the Moses Room, a giant blob of red and ermine. I am told that peers themselves refer to the process of being robed as “putting on the vermin”. I suspect it’s a phrase the former Speaker will never use.
Another giant blob of red trimmed with ermine stood next to him. This was one of his sponsors, Lord Foulkes of Cumnock who, as plain old George in the House of Commons, took lickspittle to an entirely new, indeed Olympian, level.
He has backed Michael Martin through thick and thick, for neither is slim. The other sponsor was Lord Falconer, who is also a Scot who was known as Lord Flatmate in the days of his old friend Tony Blair. All in all, this was a procession originating in another era, pre-exes, pre-Brown.
So up to the Beautiful Chamber, then, to see the deed done. I couldn’t help but notice that the prayers seemed longer than usual. Every day, peers say the Lord’s Prayer before the start of business. “Forgive us our trespasses,” they murmured yesterday, with perhaps more urgency than usual. The Tory benches were sparsely populated. Betty Boothroyd, the only other living former Speaker, sat on the cross benches, her tiny feet clad in scarlet, her hands held carefully, one finger so entirely bandaged that it looked like a mini-mummy.
“Gorbals Mick” and chums processed in silence as everyone in the Chamber watched, thinking: “Will he fluff it?” For the former Speaker is to fluffing what dalmatians are to spottiness. It is part of who he is, as integral to the man as his soft susurrating voice and his bumbling manner. I felt that the fact that his script was written in large type on a giant laminated placemat on the despatch box was absolutely necessary.
The bewigged clerk told us that Mr Martin was “trusty and well-beloved”. You could have heard a pin drop. This was the first Speaker to be sacked (though in the end he sacked himself after a near mutiny by MPs) for centuries. As Speaker, Michael Martin fought long and hard to keep expenses secret. There is an irony worthy of Shakespeare that he was being ennobled on a day in which many MPs were scurrying around, writing cheques for trees, gardening, cleaning, sofa beds, DVD players, phone bills, mortgages. You name it, they’re paying it back.
Which brings me to the robes. How much did they cost, I wondered, and who paid for them? Well, as it turned out, Mr Martin did not even go for the rent-a-robe option (£124.30 from Edie and Ravenscroft, purveyors of ceremonial wear, since you ask). Instead he used a spare from the “vermin cupboard”.
If he wants to buy new, ermine would cost £8,325, rabbit £6,325 or, fake fur, £5,995. But I’m told that, with the hereditaries going, it’s quite easy to pick up a cheaper second-hand robe (though the “e” in e-bay doesn’t stand for ermine — yet).
But back to Lord Martin of Springburn who, for once, did not fluff it. Indeed, as he finished his oath, he looked up, eyes to ceiling: “So help me God.” Then he turned, with his chums, and lined up before the Lord Speaker, giving a well orchestrated head bob. Labour peers cheered. The rest watched in silence.
©Ann Trenman
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