Revelations over the weekend that the Speaker has spent £148,900 on furniture, £191,000 on an air conditioning system and £13,000 on art for his official apartment in the Palace of Westminster make for grim reading.
Particularly for Labour MPs who have been defending Michael Martin as a working-class hero and the victim of a Daily Mail-led campaign of snobbery against the former sheet metal worker.
OK so I get that the Speaker's apartment is used for official business and you can't really pop down to IKEA when you live in a Grade I listed property.
But the sums involved here do seem profligate. However, these stories are not about art or air-conditioning. Like the furore surrounding Lord Irvine's wallpaper, these attacks are about the man.
I think the Speaker is below-average and I sympathise with the many MPs on all sides who want him to retire.
The Tories are right not only to still be sore that Labour broke the convention of alternating Speakers from the main parties in 2000, when Martin succeeded Betty Boothroyd.
He has appeared at turns nakedly partisan and close to incompetence. But the point about the Speaker is that no MP can speak out against him. It has been left to former independent MP Martin Bell to say what needs to be said: it is time he stood down.
Because the Speaker in many ways IS the House of Commons, MPs are in a difficult position. They cannot openly express their displeasure at his performance and the ida of removing him is unthinkable.
There have been problematic Speakers before, many of them Labour. George Thomas was a drinker, for example, but the "usual channels" prevailed on him to stand aside for the legendary Bernard Weatherill.
The problem with Michael Martin is that, because the attacks on him appear class-based, they raise the hackles of many of his former Labour colleagues.
But the bottom line is that a Speaker on the front pages of the papers cannot, by defenition, continue in his job as an impartial chairman and figure of respect in the House.
We can expect Michael Martin to stand down at the next election. My money is on Ming Campbell to succeed him, and if he does not want it, there is talk of John Bercow.
After the shambles of the 2000 election, we can also expect his successor to have been decided behind the scenes.
From Wikipedia!
Betty Boothroyd announced her retirement shortly before the summer recess in 2000, which left a long time for would-be Speakers to declare their candidature but little opportunity for Members of Parliament to negotiate and decide on who should be chosen. Many backbench Labour MPs, especially from Scotland, advanced the claims of Michael Martin as a long-serving Deputy Speaker. Most Conservatives felt strongly that the recent alternation between the main parties ought to be maintained and a Conservative Speaker chosen. The most prominent Conservative choices were Sir George Young and Deputy Speaker Sir Alan Haselhurst. With several maverick candidates announcing themselves, the total number of Members seeking the Speakership was 14, none of whom would withdraw. A lengthy sitting of the House saw Michael Martin first proposed, then each of the candidates proposed as an amendment which was voted down. In points of order before the debate, many members demanded a secret ballot.
