If we needed any more evidence about the failure of this particular House to 'get it', their apparent desire to elect Margaret Beckett as Speaker surely concludes debate on the matter. I have no animus against Mrs Beckett, who has been used by her party as its 'face', whenever matters have got electorally tough, for the last three decades. Whenever Labour get a drubbing in an election, it's Mrs Beckett who is wheeled onto the news programmes (insert favourite caravanning metaphor here) to spin whatever her party's current untenable line might be. This role appears to be transitioning to Chris Bryant, have you noticed? A figure of (unmalicious) ridicule. Which underlines the inappropriate nature of Mrs Beckett's candidacy. The speakership should not be a sinecure for a ministerial parliamentarian in the twilight of her career.
Richard Shepherd should be made Speaker, from the pool of available candidates. He has spent his career campaigning for Freedom of Information, through the long, lonely decades before it became the leitmotif of this post-bureaucratic age. He's almost visibly sensitive to the importance of the words he chooses when he speaks in the chamber; something which you would imagine would be a sine qua non for an elected member, but which rarely appears to be the case. Mr Shepherd's vibration of care over the words he releases is often alluded to, usually (by implication) as a reason to reduce the esteem in which he is held.
I find this sick-making, to be honest. The words of parliamentarians are the tools with which they craft our laws, and set the parameters for our liberty. I would prefer everytime, when faced with the alternative, the verbal care of Mr Shepherd. There has been little sight more depressing this last decade than the clucking of the Labour MP for Android North, mouthing his or her whip-written speech, in the hope of being captured in the Prime Ministerial doughnut on the six o'clock news. Everything we need to know about the unfitness of this House to be tasked with selecting a new Speaker is there, in front of our faces, everytime those panting puppets are called to speak in debate.
Conditional on Mr Shepherd not being elected, the least worst option is Ann Widdecombe. Even if it were not likely that she would implement some much-needed reforms (and it surely is likely that she would) her candidacy is time-limited by the date of the next general election. What is so overwhelmingly obvious to everyone (apart from the Westminster hothouse, it appears) is that we require not just a new Speaker, but a totally new House. Reboot the House of Commons. That re-legitimised House must start by selecting a proper Speaker, free from the whip-soaked shenanigans with which we are currently cursed, shenanigans due to the dismal arithmetic of Labour's current, temporary, parliamentary majority.
