“We don’t want the Speakership to become partisan”, opined some Tory or other on the radio.
Come again?
Yes, there was a class factor in the removal of Michael Martin, though really only as background.
It simply wasn’t about either Scottishness or Catholicism as such; due to the historic patterns both of Scottish land ownership and of English Catholicism, most or even all posh people are at least a bit Scots (David Cameron very much so indeed), and a disproportionately high number of them are Catholics.
It was plain, old-fashioned partisanship. The line has been crossed: who gets to be Speaker is now, as in America, a party matter. Perversely enough, if Bercow is given it, then that will be beyond dispute.
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I'd vote for Bercow (I can't, of course - unlike most of your readers, I'm not an MP). Not because he's a Tory, though. I couldn't care less what political party the speaker comes from. Simply because he's an excellent committee chairman, and a proper House of Commons man.
ReplyDeleteBut that's not why he's on for it.
ReplyDelete