The Speaker

I can hardly credit the mess that is erupting in Parliament. The police entered Parliament without a warrant. They were given access by a former quite junior Civil Servant Jill Pays who was appointed by The Speaker himself. The reason that she got the job was that The Speaker could not get on with her predecessor. Her predecessor was a former Major General in the army who of course would command respect.

The Speaker was a former sheet metal worker from Glasgow who has been a class warrior all of his life. Ability, experience and tradition play little part if that person does not tug his forelock to the mandarins of the New Labour Project. They are a mean, spiteful, small minded crew so Major General Grant Peterkin was binned.

In his place The Speaker must have cast the net wide and far to avoid the traditional appointment of a military man as Sargeant-at-Arms. For some reason he came up with Jill Pays. I don't know what her credentials for this position were but one suspects that if you are trying to trash tradition then the best way is to appoint a woman to the position of Sargeant-at-Arms. Nice one Mick!

Now we come to the problem. He stood up today and announced that it was not him who invited the police into the House of Commons thus breaking centuries of tradition. It was the Sargeant-at-Arms and she allowed them in despite the fact that they did not have a search warrant.

Now apparently they should have told her that they didn't have a warrant and their presence in the building depended solely on her permission. She didn't ask and they didn't confess so the whole episode is that an MP's office was raided illegally.

As I have already blogged the appointment of Jill Pays was ignored by the Queen because she refused this overpromoted Civil Servant the traditional audience. The Queen is no fool so she must have smelt a rat and acted accordingly. It is utterly astonishing that this was not widely reported. Now the former sheet metal worker is blaming his appointed Sargeant-at-Arms! Is that just not typical?!

They cling to an authority they have long since lost and when their incompetence is exposed then they blame the very people they have appointed who The Queen herself apparently rejected. Jill Pays quite clearly did not understand her role and allowed police without a warrant to enter the office of an MP.

I am currently watching the abject performance of Harriet Harman on Newsnight and she is so embarrassed by this issue that she is refusing to confirm that she has full confidence in The Speaker and the Sargeant-at-Arms. She is the Leader of the House of Commons. What does that say about this government?

It is obvious that the appointment of an unqualified Sargeant-at-Arms has led to this fiasco but don't blame Jill Pays. If I got the chance I would probably take it (no I wouldn't)but I would swot up on my responsibilities. Major General Peterkin would have sorted it tout suite! His response would probably take the lines of 'No Way, get lost you chancers and come back with a warrant!'

Everyone who has ever achieved anything knows that your personal choice of staff is paramount to your survival and impacts on you. If you choose your staff purely on their ability to tug their forelocks then I am sorry you appoint people on the wrong premise.

Jill Pays was the wrong person. The Speaker should resign tomorrow because he appointed a patsy to a sigificant parliamentary role. Gordon Brown...the worst ever British Prime Minister...we don't even need a vote!