GOING, GOING, GORBALS

The Houses of Parliament, its members are under siege.

After one hell of a lot of pressure Gorbals Mick, otherwise known as Michael Martin the Speaker of the House of Commons, has finally announced his resignation as Speaker and from Parliament. He is the first Speaker in three hundred years to be shoved out.

The problem was not so much him, but the very fact he was elected into a position of such responsibility in the first place - this was akin to making Rab C Nesbitt Speaker as both sound the same and by the seems of things have the same intellect. 

At the time of his election there were other Parliamentarians in the running who were far more capable of doing the job, not least the Member for Aldridge Brownhills, Richard Shepherd who in the last few days have proven himself.

You almost have to feel sorry for poor old Gorbals, although he clearly was not up to the job he has unfairly become the scapegoat for the MPs who have been caught with their sticky little paws in the taxpayers till.  At least UKIP supporting Bob Spink

pointed this out and that a large number of MPs should be looking to themselves rather than turning against the Speaker. He then very graciously thanked the Speaker for his work.

One of the problems we face now is what happens next.  Parliament is full of customs and tradition which the New Labour modernisers hate and despise, the problems to beset the Houses of Parliament now gives them the perfect opportunity to tear out every vestige of the old system to be replaced with a modern system that will have no bearing on how Parliament works, the position of out Monarch in Parliament and as the Labour Party has been out to do since Tony Blair was first elected in 1997, totally undermine the power of Parliament to hold the Government to account.  This has to be avoided at all costs.

We may have a situation where we are seeing the going, going of Gorbals Mick, but we have to ensure everything Parliament stands for is not thrown out too.