Speaker - not

I can't be alone in thinking that there was something Sovietical about the way that Speaker Martin just defied the House of the Commons and the wider world and sought to carry on regardless after insisting that everyone should apologise. We have all let you down with the Gulag. No more expense claims for the time being please. I can't imagine that he will survive his meeting with the party leaders but it is clear that this is what he intends. One aspect of his disastrous influence is the way he attacks his critics as "snobs". The Guardian's Saturday profile quotes him as saying, "I have been a trade unionist all my life. I did not come into politics not to take what is owed to me". When you see a double negative try taking out both - it means he is saying he came into politics to take what is owed him. Talk about entitlement! What would we say if a grandee or a businessman said the same? "I have been a capitalist all my life. I did not come into politics not to take what is owed me". It's pathetic as well because trade unionism should be about solidarity and helping others not helping yourself, in the worst "I'm all right Jack" tradition. He really does represent what has gone wrong, my only fear now is that if he does go after such a display of defiance it will seem like problem solved. The Tories, by the way, as Gerry has just said to me on the phone, had a much better grasp of how deep the crisis is. Of course, Richard Shephard should replace him. Meanwhile, all good men and women are trying to work out how to create a democratic moment out of the the constitutional debacle - see Liberal Conspiracy.