Today’s Observer carries an interview by Roy Hattersley with the former Speaker, Michael Martin – the first he has given since vacating the chair.
The article repeats the old refrain that it was snobbery that brought the Speaker down; interestingly, however, Martin appears to blame not his fellow MPs, but certain members of the press, for their disdainful attitude to his working class roots.
I have to say that I have never heard any of my colleagues express contempt of Martin’s background; indeed, on the day that he announced his resignation, it was one of the very grandest of the so-called Tory grandees who was the first to approach the chair and shake the Speaker’s hand.
What damaged Martin irreparably, in my view, was his handling of the Damian Green affair. As I blogged at the time, his statement to the House on the issue appeared to me an exercise in distancing himself from responsibility for what was an almost unprecedented breach of the privileges of Parliament.
I must confess that, good, kind and courteous man though he is, I never regained my confidence in him.
