Monday, May 18, 2009

An Amazing Day in British Constitutional History



I am much less hostile to the Speaker than most people commenting, and while he's not exactly a "scapegoat", I do think a lot of individual MPs, including party leaders, are all to happy to see the focus here shifted on to the Speaker.

Still, the Speaker's performance in the House of Commons was dire. On the one hand he acknowledged that he was making a public statement on TV to the country at large.

And then, amazingly, he started using parliamentary procedure to deny the two things most needed - a statement about his own future, and to debate the motion on confidence in him.

This must have looked awful to any viewer, and will play badly on the news all day.

1 comment:

Nikostratos said...

The speaker must uphold the rules and procedures of the house. He is not in a position to make them up as he goes along. He many times asked for guidance from the clerks who advised him to what was allowed.