Don’t shoot Mr Speaker — he’s doing his best
IT WAS NICE to get the pat on the back from my favourite magazine about the row over Damian Green being arrested at the end of last year. (Victor Noir, last issue)
But I was not voting against the Speaker. Michael Martin is a decent, working class Glaswegian from a background that is increasingly rare in a Commons where Old Etonians and millionaires dominate the Tory front bench and few Labour MPs come from the class we claim to speak for — your humble correspondent and life-long NUJ member included.
Michael Martin has been the object of one of the nastiest, snobbiest campaigns of abuse ever seen from the Daily Mail and other Tory papers. These snob-yob sketch-boys did not attack previous Labour Speakers because their own friends in the Tory Party were in power. They attack Michael Martin as “Gorbals Mick” knowing he cannot answer back, because they are moral cowards.
Damian Green’s arrest and the invasion of his office was wrong. But so was the attempt by the Tories to build a relationship with a young man who had privileged access to the highest and most sensitive matters a democratic government has to deal with. I assume the General Secretary of the NUJ would not want someone in his office to be sneaking out confidential material to some media boss opposed to what Jeremy Dear does.
The Speaker has made clear that any further attempt at arrests of an MP or a search of his office will now require his personal approval. I welcome that. I regret that Damian Green was arrested.
But the Journalist should not ape the Daily Mail with unfair attacks on Michael Martin and journalists should demand a full account from David Cameron of what his front bench were up to breaching the confidence in civil servants that lies at the heart of a democratic polity.
Denis MacShane MP
London