No-confidence motion won’t go far against Martin

The threat of a no-confidence vote in the Speaker, Michael Martin, may be cheered from the press gallery where 'Gorbals Mick' is a hated figure, but it is seen by many MPs as a diversion, which will only make Martin dig in his heels.

The motion of no-confidence has been tabled by Tory MP Douglas Carswell and so far has the support of one other Tory,  Ben Wallace, a former soldier and ski instructor who won the Spectator campaigner of the year award.

It follows Martin's extraordinary outburst in the Commons yesterday when he censured a number of MPs for speaking out against his handling of the Parliamentary expenses scandal – and in particular his decision to ask the police to investigate who leaked the details of MPs’ expenses claims to the Daily Telegraph.

As Speaker, Martin, a former shipyard worker from Glasgow, is responsible for overseeing MPs' expenses claims. Yet throughout the recent months of public angst about MPs' allowances, he has refused to crack down on misuse of the £24,000-a-year second home allowance. A recent newspaper report claimed that his retort to a senior MP who challenged him on pay and perks was: "I did not come into politics not to take what is owed to me."

When the Labour MP Kate Hoey asked in the Commons yesterday whether calling in the police was not "an awful waste of public money", Martin rounded on her, wagging his finger, and said that he had had enough of her "pearls of wisdom" on late-night TV.
 
"I just say to the honourable lady: it's easy to say to the press this should not happen. It is a wee bit more difficult when you don't have to give quotes to the Express – the press rather – and do nothing else. Some of us in the House have other responsibilities [than] talking to the press."

He also slapped down the Lib Dem MP Norman Baker, who asked whether the Commons commission might bring forward the publication of MPs' expenses from July, in the light of the Telegraph leak. "Another individual member keen to say to the press whatever the press wants to hear," snapped Martin. "It is wrong for the honourable gentleman to say the Commons has done nothing."

Baker later told the media: "It was disgraceful. The Speaker should be leading us out of this mess. Instead he made it plain he wants to defend vested interests."

Carswell has been gunning for the Speaker for over a year. Last April, he wrote in the Mail on Sunday, a paper which has
also targeted bullying of Commons staff by Martin: "We need to clean up Westminster politics and take action to restore faith in our political system. First, Speaker Martin must step down."

This morning on the Today programme Carswell renewed his fire, saying: "There is a man who is out of his depth, who is reacting bizarrely to justified criticism of the way the House of Commons has handled this. He is a passenger in the car crash of the Commons."

Confidence in Martin is at rock bottom. But while his personal attacks on Hoey and Baker would normally turn the Commons against the Speaker, what with backbenchers being deluged with the brown stuff by the media, they have more sympathy for Martin than with either Baker or Hoey, who are seen by many of their colleagues as outspoken mavericks or even publicity-seeking trouble-makers.

The Mole hears that some members of the Commons Commission which pulls the strings behind Martin were confident they could persuade him to stand down at the next election and accept a seat in the Lords, which is his right. They now fear that Carswell's motion will make that much more difficult, and that he won't step down until after the election when the new Parliament has a chance to pick its own Speaker.

There's another snag with any no-confidence motion. The Tory grandee who was expecting to replace Martin is allegedly neck-deep in the expenses mire himself. Sir Alan Haselhurst, deputy speaker since 1997, has claimed £142,000 on his country home over the last seven years, despite having no mortgage. ·