Rogue Parliament - Rogue Speaker

When I was a youngster there was a dinosaur factoid about the time it would take a nerve impulse to travel from the tip of a Diplodocus’ tail to reach its minuscule brain. I’ve still no idea whether it was true or not for dinosaurs, but it’s a convenient metaphor for the lag between a change in public mood and the realisation of that change by our MPs. At times the message doesn’t get through at all, as in the case of status and expenses. Contrary to every single snapshot of public opinion, MPs, like the models in the cosmetics adverts, believe they’re worth it. They really do imagine that they’re special.

Yet over the weekend another poll appeared that confirmed once more that our MPs are utterly mistaken in their high opinion of themselves. The ComRes poll for the Express hasn’t at time of writing appeared on the ComRes site so I must rely on the paper’s published excerpts.

- 73% of Remain voters think Parliament is in desperate need of reform
- 85% of Leave voters think Parliament is in desperate need of reform

- 73% of all voters think Parliament does not attract the brightest and the best

One MP in Parliament thinks he is even more special than anyone else – the vile and meretricious Speaker Bercow, the sanctimonious dwarf who has, more than any other MP, trashed our democratic nexus. He is defending nothing but his own tattered reputation, standing for nothing greater than his personal notoriety, committed to nothing but his own egoistic fantasies. And the British public are united in their view of his disastrous time in the chair – he has helped destroy confidence in Parliament.

My hope is that our only saving grace is the venality, cupidity and self-interest of MPs themselves. Faced with this crisis of confidence, they will agree to sacrifice the Lords to save themselves. It may be too little too late. Janet Daley writes in the Telegraph -

… even if the Leave case wins through, the damage that has been done to British political life is horrendous. We seem to have imported two of the worst features of the American tradition. First there is gridlock. In the US this occurs when one party has the presidency and the other controls Congress, thus making government inoperable. This should not be possible in the British system since the executive is comprised of the majority, or a functioning minority, in parliament. But the Speaker and Continuity Remain have found a way to abolish the principle of democratic consent which once accepted this arrangement.

Then there is the US predilection for a losing side to try to sue its way to victory with continuous vexatious litigation. This is alien not only to our customs but to our national understanding of the role of politics and the function of the law.

My own view is that the system, the configuration, is robust. It has been corrupted by a Rogue Parliament and a Rogue Speaker, a man who should never in a million years have been elevated to the chair. I just hope we can cull them, throw them from the place, eject them and reclaim OUR Parliament and OUR democracy free from these vulgar weasels.