LONDON (Reuters) – The most senior official in Britain’s lower house of parliament apologised to the nation yesterday for an expenses scandal among lawmakers that has prompted growing calls for an early general election.
“Please allow me to say to the men and women of the United Kingdom that we have let you down very badly indeed,” Speaker Michael Martin said in a speech to a packed chamber.
Sidestepping calls to quit over his handling of the crisis, Martin said he would meet party leaders in the next two days to discuss reforms to a system which saw claims for everything from bathplugs and biscuits to cat food and tennis court repairs.
“We must all accept blame and to the extent that I have contributed to the situation, I am profoundly sorry,” said Martin, dressed in the Speaker’s black robe.
Forcing Martin’s resignation would be a constitutional landmark on a par with the abdication of a monarch or a US president’s impeachment, said John Curtice, professor of politics at Strathclyde University, Scotland.
“There is a reverence about the office … a kind of mythology about it,” he said. “It is the equivalent of an abdication crisis. There is no doubt we are in a pretty old whirlwind. We are going to remember this one.”
Conservative lawmaker Patrick Cormack likened the situation to the wartime debate in parliament that led to the resignation of the then prime minister Neville Chamberlain in 1940.
“What is at stake is the institution of parliament and its integrity,” Cormack told the lower house after Martin’s speech.
Earlier, Prime Minister Gordon Brown called for “root and branch” reform to defuse a scandal that has damaged all the main political parties but appears to be hitting Labour hardest after 12 years in power.
Opposition leader David Cameron, whose Conservative party is well ahead in opinion polls, urged Britons to campaign for an early general election, saying the removal of the Speaker would not be enough to restore parliament’s authority.
Martin, a former metal worker and trade union official who grew up in a working class part of Scotland, blocked a debate over his future in parliament.
If ousted, he would be the first Speaker to be sacked since John Trevor lost his post for taking bribes in 1695. His departure would spark a by-election in his constituency in Glasgow and could add to calls for a national poll.
The Speaker is the highest authority in the lower house and represents the chamber to the monarch. His duties include keeping order during debates, calling lawmakers to speak and making sure they follow the rules of parliament.
Liberal Democrat lawmaker Norman Baker told Sky News: “Today’s performance was terrible, frankly. I am afraid he signed his own political death warrant today.”
