By Stephen Daisley
Michael Martin is an unlikely holder of one of the most prestigious offices in British political life.
As well as being the first Roman Catholic to oversee the House of Commons since the Reformation, he is almost certainly the first Glaswegian sheet-metal worker to don the famous black robes.
Mr Martin’s background is far removed from the pomp and circumstance of the Palace of Westminster.
Born on July 3, 1945, in Glasgow to a merchant seaman and school cleaner, he left school aged 15 to take up an apprenticeship in the gruelling sheet-metal trade. There he joined the industry’s trade union and became shop steward. Aged 21, he stumped up his first membership dues to the Labour Party.
Mr Martin’s involvement in politics took a more active role when he was elected to Glasgow Corporation, the forerunner to Glasgow City Council, in 1973. He was sent to Westminster to represent Glasgow Springburn (now Glasgow North East) in the 1979 poll which swept Margaret Thatcher to power.
From 1980 until 1983 he served as Parliamentary Private Secretary to Denis Healey, then deputy leader of Labour under Michael Foot. He was present to witness some of the party’s darkest days, from the fight with the Militant Tendency to Mrs Thatcher’s landslide 1983 election victory. After that rebuke to Labour’s socialist policies, Mr Martin supported fellow moderate Roy Hattersley in his unsuccessful party leadership bid.
He served a decade, from 1987 to 1997, as chair of the Scottish Grand Committee, a panel of MPs from north of the border. Appointed one of the Commons’ deputy Speakers in 1997, when it came time for the incumbent Speaker Betty Boothroyd to retire, Mr Martin was voted her replacement. The decision was controversial, since Mrs Boothroyd had also been a former Labour MP. Some Conservatives thought it only fair a Tory MP was made Speaker instead.
His West of Scotland tones might have helped calm many a heated exchange between MPs but they were not to everyone’s liking. He was nicknamed “Gorbals Mick” by the Daily Mail’s acerbic sketch writer Quentin Letts, even though Mr Martin is not from the Gorbals area of Glasgow. This has led to some Scots claiming Mr Martin is the victim of anti-Scottish social snobbery.
In 2008, he came under media scrutiny for his use of air miles incurred on official business and for claiming taxi expenses incurred by his wife Mary on shopping trips. Unsurprisingly, he has enjoyed an adversarial relationship with the media - even spending £20,000 of public money on lawyers to rebut negative news coverage of his professional conduct.
Unfavourable coverage was widespread after the arrest of Conservative immigration spokesman Damian Green in November 2008. Mr Green had made public leaked documents passed onto him by a Whitehall civil servant revealing significant lapses in security and immigration matters. When police raided Mr Green's parliamentary office they went unhindered by Palace of Westminster authorities despite their not having a warrant to search the premises.
The recent revelations in the Daily Telegraph of widespread misuse of the parliamentary expenses system by a raft of MPs has once again focussed the spotlight on Speaker Martin. Many observers criticised his abrupt comments to MPs, including Labour’s Kate Hoey, who challenged his decision to call in the police over the leaking of the expenses claims. He snapped that he often heard the Member for Vauxhall’s “pearls of wisdom on Sky News.”
Conservative MP Douglas Carswell proposed a motion of no-confidence in response and has been joined by a growing number of MPs willing to take the rare measure of criticising the Speaker.
