Going, going, gone ! Not with a bang but a whimper.

At last, the Speaker has seen sense and announced his resignation. MPs must not imagine that his departure is the necessary reform of the Commons. So much more needs to be done. They would do well to look at the procedures of some other parliaments, perhaps not as old but then not as archaic nor hidebound by conventions that protect the executive from effective scrutiny. May I suggest having a look at the European Parliament ?

Oh mother ! What a parliament !

Once again the so-called mother of parliaments reveals its essential weakness. Once it challenged kings. Now it lies at the beck and call of Prime Ministers. The House of Commons does NOT control its own timetable. That privilege resides with the government of the day, so it's up to Gordon Brown whether MPs get to debate no confidence in his old mucker, the Speaker. Look ourt of the window, Gordon. Look at that statue of Cromwell and remember his words:

"you have been sat too long here for any good you have been doing. Depart, I say, and let us have done with you. In the name of God, go!."

"You have sat too long for any good you have been doing lately ... Depart, I say; and let us have done with you. In the name of God, go!"

Could anyone fail to be disgruntled, disappointed, disillusioned, dismayed by the dismal, disingenuous disaster that is Michael Martin ? I watched with incredulity this inadequate man's sad statement yesterday. No apology. No acknowledgment of his own duty or his failure to perform it. In true New Labour style he tried to pass the buck to others, the Sergeant-at-Arms or the police. Note his use of the passive - "I was not told that the police did not have a warrant" and "I was not asked the question of whether consent should be given or whether a warrant should have been insisted on...". The passive voice is always favoured by people trying to escape their own responsibility. Is there a bank-robber, a fan of any television detective programme, indeed any citizen who does not know that the police need a warrant to search ? Why did it not occur to the Speaker (£76,904 p.a. on top of an MP's salary) or the Sergeant-at-Arms (salary unknown) to ask to see a warrant ? Can it be, as Dominic Grieve and Chris Huhne suggested on Newsnight that Parliament has now become the creature of the executive and can no longer defend itself ? Yet most MPs are still mealy-mouthed about the Speaker. Time now to stand up. MPs must remember the words of Oliver Cromwell and tell Michael Martin it's time to go.