YES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Michael Martin is going to announce is resignation

[FabulousBakerGirl]

I hope it is today.

He's a tad wet, isn't he?

Betty was top notch.

He look like he was well out of his depth yesterday, shaking like a leaf.

Agree about Betty - brilliant woman

Brilliant woman - who made female MPs ear skirts if they were to address the House!!

Bring Back Betty B!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The new MN campaign.

Bring back Betty!!

TBH any speaker was going to look crap in comparison but MM really is crap.

He is doing his announcement at 2.30 this afternoon.

I'm more than a bit fed up with MP's using the Speaker to distract from the fact that what they, the MPs did was wrong. I think the Political Parties need to sort themselves out first - they keep saying that they need to get rid of the Speaker to regain "the pubic's" trust (because we are just a single mass with one opinion!). If they really want to regain my trust, they should just start telling the truth and take a pro active approach to politics instead of waiting for the media to hype up and issue and then issue some idiotic 'policy statement' on it.

Agree with Sis and Lenin.

Is this supposed to pacify us?
I don't feel celebratory about tbh

Agree Lenin

This man is no more guilty than the rest

This is just an example of MP's hunting around desperately wanting to get the heat off themselves

He's a scapegoat

Absolutely a scapegoat, its a disgrace the whole thing but this one man resigning? How does that warrant a YES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!?

If your title was Hazel Blears announcing resignation from politics and emmigration to a cave in Kabul then I might be slightly happier.

Agree with jojo et al - he's only one of many, and until the rest of the money-grabbing, morally corrupt shower of wasters go I'll not be shouting from the rooftops.

Still, I suppose one IS a start...

Sorry but how is this going to help?

The PMs that have done it should ALL be handing in their resignations!!

As far as I can tell yes he stopped reform happening but hes not done any of it himself (feel free to correct me if I'm wrong)

I feel sorry for him. Its like sacking the boss for something his employees did.

I think the 15% of the fuckers MP's who had their greedy, fat, greasy paws in the public purse should resign.

I don't care about the speaker, tis a side issue to distract us from the real issue.

It's a start, jojosmaman.

But it will be the start of the end Fab baker, MM will resign and it will placate a few and some MP's will be publicly suspended and in a few weeks said MP's will sneak back in when we're all preoccupied with whether we're all going to die from a new strain of dog flu or such like.

Hopefully there will be a general election very soon and all the corrupt MPs will go and we will have some decent people in the HoC.

This has really annoyed me actually.
Dont care about mm as such, but found yesterdays scenes quite sickening really. Like- yes we're greedy, dishonest bastards but we'll offer up the speaker to pay for our sins, god forbid any of us actually get the chop.
How could they muster that much anger towards him when i didnt see any of them balling out their fellow mp's. You know, the ones who actually brought about this whole situation.

he may be a rubbish speaker , etc etc..but him going won't make things better..it's way more serious..him going is supposed to make the public feel better and not swell upon the real issues..those men in black palying with our money while supposedly serving us! To think we so often sit and poke fun at developing countries for corruption and lecture them on democracy etc etc..we need to rethink our own morals and principles..

Of course all MPs are indivually responsible and should be held to account, but I disagree with the concept that he is just a scapegoat. As with any institution, people take their lead from the top. IMO, MM is greedy and self serving, and this has filtered down. He has been embroiled personally in a number of dubious activities such as his air miles and wife's taxi bills, but on a wider scale he proudly states that "he wasn't a Union man all his life not to take what's owing to him". No wonder he resisted all efforts to lead reform to the system.

The only way I can see that he's a scapegoat is that MPs may have elected him in the first instance knowing that he would fight their corner and now they have turned their backs.

Am quite sad about this.

Michael Martin started out with such ideals. He was a working class guy, a trade unionist and made it to Parliament.

He made mistakes, but I don't take any personal satisfaction in his resignation at all.

This scapegoating leaves a very bad taste in the mouth. I don't have any positive feelings towards Michael Martin at all, but it all feels a bit wrong that a bunch of MPs have decided that a significant part of the rot is down to him. It's this side of politics that rather repels me.

Douglas Carswell, the MP who stared the motion of no confidence against Michael Martin, himself claimed the maximum (to the penny) second homes allowance of £23,083 last year. I'll bet those expenses weren't "wholly, exclusively and necessarily incurred" to perform his duties. He's just seen an opportunity to promote his own back-bench profile, and I'll bet he's loving it.

FabulusbakerGirl, at the general election, the main parties will put forward more candidates who speak in offical party speak and never utter the truth so not really sure how things will improve. In fact, if the Tories get in, I suspect there will be a lot more of the blatent lining of pockets - as there was with the last Tory Govt.