No Change, Then

Before Gorbals Mick spoke to the Commons on 18 May, I speculated that he would leave his post and "will be offered ennoblement and a seat in the House of Lords. Why? Because all previous Speakers have. In other words, this becomes an entitlement, just like having Douglas Hogg's dovecote cleaned at public expense"

The post was called How to Spot if Anything Has Changed. I went on:

"What, exactly, might Michael Martin offer the Lords? Has he any knowledge, ability, or experience to impart? I suggest not. He never held ministerial office, he never introduced thoughtful or worthwhile legislation, he is not known to have shown individual talent at all. The only noteworthy thing about him is that he became Speaker of the House of Commons. He is deemed to be the worst Speaker of modern times, and the first for 300 years to face a vote of no confidence.
There is, in short, no possible justification for raising him to the peerage. To do so would be to treat the electorate with contempt. "Change" is the watchword now, and the Speaker will doubtless use the word several times in his statement today. But if he ends up ennobled, we'll know that nothing, really, has changed at all."

Well, Martin has got his ermine despite official warnings that he wasn't worth it, and will follow Glenys Kinnock, who took her seat yesterday, in an upper chamber stuffed to the rafters with placemen and sycophants of Blair and Brown. Meanwhile, his replacement in the Commons, the ghastly Bercow, seems to have a temper problem and is already seen to be settling old scores.

It's a rum old world, isn't it? On the back of the most public and humiliating scandal in Parliament's history, one stupid, greedy and incompetent man gets ennobled, and is replaced by a man of no principle or integrity whatsoever, a practical joke played upon the Tories by the bovine Labour backbenchers, as part of the scorched earth policy Brown seems intent upon before he is dismissed by Mandelson or the electors - whichever comes first.