British House Speaker Quits Amid Expense Scandal

For the first time in 300 years, a speaker of the British House of Commons is being hounded from office, with Michael Martin announcing his plans to step down in June amid a raging scandal over how members of Parliament used their expense accounts.

As the BBC reports, Martin made his announcement with characteristic British understatement:

In a brief statement to a packed House of Commons he said he would step down on 21 June, with his successor set to be elected by MPs the next day.

Mr Martin, who is also expected to step down as an MP, has faced criticism over his handling of the MP expenses issue.

The Glasgow North East MP has been an MP for 30 years and Speaker for nine.

 

In a statement to MPs which lasted less than a minute, Mr Martin said: "I have always felt that the House is at its best when it is united.

"In order to that unity can be maintained, I have decided that I will relinquish office of Speaker on Sunday 21 June.

"This will allow the House to proceed to elect a new Speaker on Monday 22 June."

The British expense-account scandal is roughly analogous to the House bank and post office scandals that occurred in the 1990s in which U.S lawmakers kited checks and diverted funds meant to pay for official mailings, all to increase their incomes.

As NPR's Rob Gifford explained:

The heart of the problem is that MPs, who are paid roughly $100,000 a year, work at Westminster in London, but generally live with their families in their constituencies. So they receive an allowance of about $30,000 for furniture, accessories, repairs and mortgage interest relief for a second home.

The accusation is that they have used the expense claims on their second home as an alternative income stream to pay for gardeners, chandeliers, dog food, wine and horse manure. Several MPs, most notably a senior member of Gordon Brown's cabinet, have been accused of changing the designation of their second home. That's a practice known as flipping, so that the allowance can then be applied to another property.

Martin had a manifestly tin ear on the scandal, at times sounding as though he thought it was much adieu about nothing.

As the BBC reported in a Martin profile:

When other MPs - Kate Hoey among them - suggested that the issue of the expenses themselves, rather than their release, was paramount, Mr Martin reacted angrily, saying he had already heard Ms Hoey's "pearls of wisdom on Sky News."

Since then calls grew for the Speaker to step down with Lib Dem leader Nick Clegg the most senior politician to join the campaign.

He has accused Mr Martin of being a "dogged defender of the status quo", and a major obstacle to greater "transparency and accountability" in the expenses system.