The Speaker must go |

Tuesday 12th May 2009 | 16:14

The Speaker must go

Panellists across the political spectrum are now calling for Michael Martin to stand down, including eighty five per cent of MPs

The speaker has lost the confidence of MPs

Michael Martin has completely lost the confidence of parliamentarians. That's the significant verdict from the PHI100, the expert and inside panel which includes MPs of all the main parties. Both leading backbenchers and senior Ministers and Opposition frontbenchers are represented on the politically balanced panel.

A thumping eighty five per cent of the parliamentarians on the panel now believe that Michael Martin should step down as Speaker. This represents more than ten times the number of MPs who have publicly declared that the Speaker should go.

That is a massive vote of no confidence in his handling of the furore over parliamentary expenses and his querulous clashes in the Chamber with critical MPs.

The other groups on the panel all take the same view as the politicians that he has to go. Overwhelming majorities of the party strategists, the think tank leaders and the media panellists agree that he should remove himself from the chair.

Taking the panel as a whole, eighty seven per cent of the PHI100 believe the Speaker must quit. That's a big jump up from the 63% who said he should resign last November when we asked about his position at the height of the Damian Green Affair.

Left agree with Right

There is also a consensus across the political spectrum. Right-leaning panellists say he should stand down by a margin of more than 9 to 1.

Non-aligned panellists are unanimously of that view. So is a massive majority of Lib Dem panellists.

Speaker Martin is also getting more and more friendless among left-leaning panellists who might be assumed to be more sympathetic to a Speaker from the Labour party.

Left-leaning panellists say he should resign by a margin of more than 3 to 1.

Unfit for office

A Lib Dem parliamentarian said: ‘Yesterday's outburst was the final straw for me. He simply doesn't understand the public fury, and what has been done wrongly. He has been a terrible servant of Parliament. He should go immediately.’

A left leaning media panellist added: ‘He is unfit for office’

A panellist from a right leaning think tank described Martin as: ‘an utterly compromised figure’

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