 | 'Labour has been reluctant to act because it does not want to trigger a potentially damaging by-election in his Glasgow Springburn seat. Speakers traditionally step down from the Commons immediately and take a seat in the Lords.' Sam Coates, Chief Political Correspondent in the Times, 12 th April 2008. |  |
Ministers have gone to Downing Street to tell Gordon Brown that the Speaker must go after his extraordinary outburst against two MPs yesterday, The Times can reveal.
Mr Brown must meet with David Cameron and Nick Clegg and agree that Michael Martin should go as soon as possible, ministers believe.
"He must be handed the pearl revolver," a senior member of the Government said.
The comments are an indication of the depth of the anger at Michael Martin on the government side.
Many MPs believe that the rehabilitation of Parliament's reputation cannot begin until he is removed from his post, since the Speaker oversees the system of allowances, which is now widely discredited.
However, a spokesman for the Prime Minister said that Mr Brown backed the Speaker. "The Speaker is appointed by the Commons, not the Government. The Prime Minister obviously supports the will of the Commons, therefore he supports the person who has been elected as Speaker of the Commons," the spokesman said.
"The Prime Minister has said before, and he stands by that, that he thinks the Speaker is doing a good job."
Mr Clegg made it clear today that Mr Martin behaved inappropriately yesterday.
"I think the Speaker got it wrong, very wrong," he said.
The Lib Dem leader said that Mr Martin should represent Parliament, adding: "It is clear Parliament as a whole owes an apology to the British public. He needs to reflect that sense of apology and the urgency for new rules that put MPs beyond any further suspicion."
Mr Clegg added: "I think it's incumbent on all politicians to say 'sorry, we got this spectacularly wrong'."
Mr Cameron and Mr Clegg have refused to voice their confidence in Mr Martin in the past Ð they did not back him over his handling of the arrest of Damian Green, the Tory frontbencher, last year.
Douglas Carswell, a backbench Tory MP, has said that he will put down a motion of no confidence in the Speaker. Ben Wallace, the shadow minister for Scotland, also said today that he did not support Mr Martin.
However, the Speaker is unlikely to be ousted by a formal vote. Instead either Gordon Brown or a delegation of "men in grey suits" Ð senior MPs from all sides of the House Ð could ask him to step down.
Members of the House of Commons commission, the body which oversees the running of Parliament, have told MPs to "watch this space" over the future of the
Labour has been reluctant to act because it does not want to trigger a potentially damaging by-election in his Glasgow Springburn seat. Speakers traditionally step down from the Commons immediately and take a seat in the Lords.
MPs also question whether Mr Brown has enough political strength at the moment for a showdown with Mr Martin.
However, yesterday's outburst has prompted a crisis in the Commons.
Kate Hoey, a Labour backbencher, said that calling in the police to investigate who leaked details of MPs' expenses was an "awful waste of money" at a time when the police already had a huge job to do in London.
She was cut short by Mr Martin who told her: "I just say to you, it's easy to say to the press 'This should not happen'. It's a wee bit more difficult when you just don't have to give quotes to the press and do nothing else.
"Some of us in this House have other responsibilities."
Labour MPs already believed that Mr Martin would step down well before the next election.
Mr Carswell accused Mr Martin of losing control of the Commons and behaving bizarrely yesterday.
"I really do think we need a new Speaker Ð elected, crucially, by secret ballot, so he can't be a patsy of the Whips' Office Ð with a mandate for reform," Mr Carswell said.
"We need a Speaker who is willing to restore respect to the House of Commons and dignity to Parliament.
"I want to make sure that the tradition of parliamentary independence, holding the government of the day to account, is revived. We can't do that when we have got a Speaker who, frankly, is in the pocket of the executive."
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