Parliament Revisted

A couple of days ago I posted on the detention of a Member of Parliament in the UK. This was Damien Green, the Shadow Minister for Immigration, not the Shadow Home Secretary, as I stated in the post.

The arrest of Mr Green has raised a lot of discussion and it appears his Wikipedia entry is being updated almost daily.

The story has evolved from the alleged involvement of the Home Secretary, Jacqui Smith, in allowing this arrest of an MP, to the Speaker of the House of Commons, Mr Michael Martin, allowing the police, without a search warrant, to enter Westminster Palace and the House of Commons area to search Mr Green's offices. The British Parliament, commonly known as the Mother of all Parliaments, guards its prerogatives closely.

Today's Manchester Guardian reports that not only have two Conservative MPs called for the resignation of the Speaker, Mr Michael Martin, but now a left wing member of the Labor Party.

As Matthew Weaver reports, it is unlikely the Prime Minister, Mr Gordon Brown, will agree to the Speaker (a person normally viewed as strictly neutral) stepping down, as Mr Martin would then be, by tradition, bumped to the House of Lords, opening up a by-election that could be bruising for Labor.

Our Democratic institutions need to be guarded carefully and this incident in the UK is setting a bad precedent.

Regards -- Cliff