Speakership Election

Sorry I haven't updated the blog in the last few days - I have been away the early part of this week, but I just wanted to make a quick comment on the events of Monday evening in the House; the election of a new speaker.

Of course I was supporting Sir George Young - and I think he would have made a great speaker, so you may feel I am being a little biased - but the events in the Palace of Westminster never cease to amaze. Parliament has just faced some of the toughest weeks in its history in terms of public confidence in politics and politicians, and still hasn't come out of that crisis. The expenses scandal was a complete gamechanger in terms of the Local elections and European Elections earlier this month. MP's disposed with the last speaker to make a clean break to try and increase confidence again - but what did they go and do - yes vote for a divisive character. John Bercow is loathed by a majority of Conservative MP's and almost crossed the floor to the Labour Party, so when he put up for speaker, Labour MP's saw this as a way of getting at the Conservatives in revenge for leading the coup to get rid of Speaker Martin.

A Speaker should command respect across all sides of the house and it is clear by the way many Conservative MP's refused to clap his election and the subsequent plottings to try and set out a way to get rid of him after the next election, that this is not the case. Parliament had an opportunity to try and drag itself out of the mire - but I feel they missed that opportunity. We will wait and see what happens next.