Submitted by Yardbroom
“We have let you down very badly indeed…we must all accept the blame and to the extent that I have contributed to the situation, I am profoundly sorry”…
With those words Michael Martin Speaker of the House of Commons in England expected he could tenuously hang on to that exalted position. It was not to be. The conservative MP Douglas Carswell tabled a no confidence motion in the Speaker and with the signatures of some twenty odd members from across the political spectrum, his fate was ignominiously sealed. It was not the numbers that mattered he had lost the “moral authority” to be Speaker. The Speaker should be above the fray, beyond reproach, this was no longer the case. A sheet metal worker, Union shop steward and later member of Parliament, the boy from the tough Gorbals area of Scotland had done well; but now he is the first Speaker in more than three hundred years to be forced from office and be publicly humiliated… what a sad epitaph.
For those who are tempted to ask – and some will – what has this got to do with Barbados? Our House of Assembly was constituted in 1639 we have a parliamentary democracy and our Presiding Officer of the House of Assembly is the Speaker, ours is modeled on the Westminster system.
In life lessons can always be learnt, it is only fools who are not prepared to learn and thus repeat the mistakes of others.
This situation arose because members of Parliament had helped themselves to the largess of the public purse, they had made outrageous expense claims, which they were not morally entitled to, with the popular refrain they had “followed the rules.” However, the general public thought those rules were porous and were being taken advantage of. When the details of MPs expense claims were leaked to the Daily Telegraph – a respected paper – the hard pressed public were surprised to find some MPs had claimed for top of the range television screens, to have a moat cleaned, to have second home mortgage interest rates paid at public expense, only minutes walk from their first home. The list of misdemeanours was long, detailed and across the range of political parties. It resembled a feeding frenzy no one wanted to be left out, and sup they did.
Oh! how the mighty have been brought down, public dissatisfaction is rife and the Speaker made the mistake of defending the discredited expenses system and so his fate was sealed.
Was he a good man brought down by the misdeeds of others or one unable to feel the public mood because he had become out of touch…a mistake for a politician.
Perhaps a twist often unexpected can cause a change of circumstances, those who tamper with the public purse do so at their peril; London or Bridgetown it does not matter. Many Cabinet Ministers, household names, now tremble their careers perhaps over and MPs some with large majorities fear the next election.
In public office the temptations are great and so is the fall from grace when ignominy beckons, in office you are only there for awhile…tread warily.
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