Speaker Lenthall asserting the privileges of the House of Commons against Charles I, who had entered the house to seize five Members
Mooching through the Parliament website I discover that there is a system for Appeals Over Members’ Allowances. And that anonymity in such matters has always been of concern: “any published material recording the outcome of the appeal will be anonymised.”
Funny that. But then in this country people have always been very shy about revealing details of their income & financial affairs
What it does show however is that it would have been possible, with tougher management of claims, to make perfectly clear to those too thick-skinned to understand, where lie the limits of propriety
Any child of my generation would have heard the story of Speaker Lenthall & his assertion of the privilege of Parliament
Speaker Martin may feel that his defence of the privilege of Parliament against the press falls into the same category - & indeed it is deeply alarming that someone can copy these ‘private’ documents & hawk them around
But I think now is definitely the time to stop digging, at least in public
Emily Thornberry, who has already demonstrated on Westminster Hour her disappointing ability to be a good little speak-your-weight member of her party (she is much better than that) gave a disastrous interview to Victoria Derbyshire yesterday, during which she launched into that tired old thing that people criticise Speaker Martin only on the snobbish grounds that he comes from a working class Glasgow background
This is a bit hard to square with the fact that the previous 3 Speakers were hardly born with silver spoons in their mouth
Although Bernard Weatherill went to Marlborough he was the son of a mere tailor (albeit a sporting one for the bespoke upper classes)
George Thomas was the son of a Welsh miner & had the Welsh accent to match
Betty Boothroyd was the daughter of Yorkshire textile workers, & started her working life as a dancer, & her vowels were hardly kit gless
We are in what may be a very dangerous situation. Unfortunately (for them as much as for us) neither the Prime Minister nor the Speaker has the qualitites needed to calm the public & put us back on the way to restoring confidence & reputation in a system which is supposed to be ‘the envy of the world’ (Sounds of hollow laughter)
Someone commenting on the very different Parliament entered by Ernest Millington, the last MP to sit in the House of Commons during WWII, said: “But we had been a democracy for less than 20 years then, so people were still idealistic about politics”
Sixty years later, we still have a lot to learn
We are in what may be a very dangerous situation. Unfortunately (for them as much as for us) neither the Prime Minister nor the Speaker has the qualitites needed to calm the public & put us back on the way to restoring confidence & reputation in a system which is supposed to be ‘the envy of the world’ (Sounds of hollow laughter)
Someone commenting on the very different Parliament entered by Ernest Millington, the last MP to sit in the House of Commons during WWII, said: “But we had been a democracy for less than 20 years then, so people were still idealistic about politics”
Sixty years later, we still have a lot to learn
