So the fiddlers at the House of Crime are going to elect themselves a new 'Speaker' and it appears that a certain Margaret Beckett is the favourite.

Could this be anything to do with her appearance on Question Time a few weeks back when she stated that the British Public 'did not understand about expenses' and that we were pretty much idiots?

Please don't let this terrible woman become Speaker (and I am not affilitated to any Party)

Hear, hear.

That is what I like; a topic that is in stereo

It is totally unnacceptable for anyone who has been involved with this disgusting MPs expenses scandal to be considered for the Speakers position.
Have they not learnt anything.
What a squallid and dishonourable parliment this has become.

But that is the point; corruption votes for corruption. She has been tainted along with everybody else, but they want her. What does that tell you about politics?

At the present time I think it stinks.

I just want to feel that I can trust those in authority again.

Me too, Bill, but I'm afraid that is going to take an awful long time. I really feel these crooks we have in Westminster have betrayed us and, sadly for some who are honest - Benyon and Martin Salter? - they're all tarred with the same brush in our minds. As Arthur Daley would have put it 'They've made us the laughing stock of the manor....'

My choice for the job would be either Menzies Campbell or Anne Widdecombe although I'm not even sure if Campbell is in the running for it.

It's a shame in a way that it has to be a serving MP otherwise someone like Lord Ashdown or Martin Bell would also be good choices, in my humble opinion.

The only problem is that Lord Ashdown couldn't do it because he is not in the House of commons (he's a Lord) and Martin Bell isn't an MP. Also; you would have to have quite a few years behind you to even be considered.

Yes GMR that is why I wrote this - "It's a shame in a way that it has to be a serving MP otherwise someone like Lord Ashdown or Martin Bell would also be good choices, in my humble opinion. "


Also Martin Bell isn't exactly a youngster and I believe the Sikh candidate for the post is in his late 30's.

I apologise.... maybe I should have read it properly

John Bercow has been elected Speaker of the House of Commons. Glad Margaret Beckett didn't make it. If she had got in she'd have been a stooge of the Labour government.

Be even more glad Sir Geo Young didn't make it. Apart from being deeply implicated in privatising the railways (and we all know how cost effective that has been, don't we? ho ho) he has also managed to submit his expense claims to within a few shillings of the maximum allowed, plus having the brass nerve to claim for a camcorder from the taxpayer. Twisters, the lot of them. Hasn't Bercow claimed off us for an accountant as well?

Yes he has.... but he is the best of a bad bunch.