Dan Hannan went viral and wowed the YouTube generation with his speech.  For a moment he seemed to have eclipsed Douglas Carswell, who was with Hannan the co-author of The Plan.  In the short time Carswell has been in parliament he has made some impact with his coherent critique of the political status quo.  He is independently minded and often described as a maverick; he has already managed to upset the Conservative Party establishment, turn down a PPS job offer designed to stifle him, upset the powerful defence industry lobby and break with parliamentary convention by championing the ousting of a disgraced Speaker.  Not bad work.

He has a slim majority of 920.  Guido expects the voters of Clacton to return him with acclaimation at the general election…

He presided over a period which saw parliament develop a culture of corruption. Not just the universal tendency of politicians the world over to travel on a taxpayer funded gravy train.  He himself was compromised by being one of the most outrageous examples of personal enrichment at the public’s expense while pretending to be a public servant.

He also repeatedly failed in his duty to defend the rights of parliament against the power of the executive. He should not be allowed to retire with the dignity of a peerage, he has disgraced the office of Speaker.

The grassroots of all the main parties are pretty outraged with their parliamentary representatives. ConservativeHome polled readers who overwhelmingly wanted troughing Tories punished and deselected. LibDem activists lobbied their Federal Executive over Chris Rennard’s dishonesty. Labour activists including prospective candidates and elected councillors have written to the party’s governing NEC to change the rules to allow troughing MPs to be deselected more easily.

Clegg has been lucky in that none of his MPs have so far been accused of flipping properties. The difference between the reactions of the party leaders is clear.  When Cameron became aware that Andrew MacKay was on the fiddle, he immediately dispensed with his senior adviser before the sun rose.   Cameron went further yesterday and told Conservatives to sack their local Tory MP if they had their snoughts in the trough.  Guido will stick his neck out and say that by contrast Gordon will do whatever he can to hold onto Nick Brown, his troughing chief whip, come what may. No wonder over 100 Labour activists have described the prime minister as “negligent” in his response so far to the unfolding revelations about the allowance system.

The Labour Party whips office has been revealed to be corrupt through and through, yet it is supposed to police the PLP’s behaviour.  Labour’s chief whip Nick Brown has claimed tens of thousands of pounds without producing a receipt.  Gordon Brown sits in cabinet with James Purnell, Hazel Blears, Jacqui Smith and Geoff Hoon.  Each of them has defrauded the taxpayer and milked the system to an extraordinary degree.  As long as they sit around the table he presides over a cabinet of crooks.

The Federal Executive of the LibDems is meeting at 5.30 tonight.  Guido hears there are mutterings about the party chief-exec Chris Rennard’s expenses situation (he is a non-voting member of the executive).  He pretends his main residence is in Eastbourne and thus claims for “second home” expenses in London.  He also signs into the attendance register at the Lords on his way to do his day job at the LibDem HQ office in Cowley Street.  Handy extra dosh to pay for all those summer parties he and Lady Rennard throw in their Stockwell home just over the other side of the Thames.

Wonder if they will just ask him not to throw any more parties?

UPDATE : Liberal Vision’s Mark Littlewood is reporting that LibDem Voice’s Alix Mortimer has written to members of the Fed Exec calling for a resolution of the Rennard problem.  The grassroots is calling for him to be brought to book: privately behind closed doors and under point 5 (subsections [a] to [b]) of her blog post. Insurrection is in the air…

15.30 Speaker called a meeting with all party leaders.  Gordon Prentice (Labour) and Douglas Carswell (Conservative) made Points of Order regarding the No Confidence Motion that were refused by the Speaker. Told to retire by David Winnick (Labour).  David Heath (LibDem) got heated.

Chamber looked ready to do damage.

15.43 Richard Shepherd (Conservative)  called for the Motion to be debated.  Stuart Bell (Labour) toadied to the Speaker.  David Davis asked how the motion could be made into a substantive motion, only with the government’s blessing said the Speaker (to jeers).

15.45 Susan Kramer called for an opposition day debate on the motion.

MPs leave looking unhappy.  Speaker gave nothing away.

UPDATE : PoliticsHome have the full transcript.

According to Associated Press “There was no panic as EU workers stood outside of the building in Brussels”. An EU spokesman tells the BBC that the fire broke out in the press room of the EU building – “There are no reports of casualties”.

UKIP possibly getting a little carried away with their anti-EU campaign…

After record gains in 2004 India’s communists were close to power.  They derailed India’s economic liberalisation, curbed further deregulation, opposed moves to make the labour market more flexible, and prevented privatisation.   Now the 700 million strong electorate has comprehensively rejected them and their left-wing allies.

The decisive victory of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, a committed supporter of  globalisation, has led the Bombay market to surge 10% on the open this morning.  The American century has passed with the Anglo-American investment banking model  stumbling, so it looks like the Anglo-Indian model of capitalism will drive the rise of the next economic superpower.  Private capital is going to flood into India again.  Capitalism is still the greatest way for humanity to raise standards of living and reduce poverty.

John Stonborough spun for the Speaker and the House of Commons Commission from 2001 to 2003. He was hired because he understood how to handle a hostile media environment.

On Stonborough’s blog he reflects back on how Michael Martin dealt with critical counsel:

On the July 1, 2003, I had one of my regular private meetings with the Speaker in his study overlooking the river. It was a friendly encounter, just the two of us, and I decided to mention this business of claiming for his second home. I think I had mentioned it once previously. I should not have needed to do this, but few Commons officials had the guts to voice their concerns to him. I did.

The Speaker went puce. He told me to stay where I was and summoned the Clerk of the House, Roger Sands, and made me repeat my “allegation” in front of him. I wrote to the Speaker afterwards saying I thought he had been a bit rough on me. Being an adviser is not a popularity contest. The Speaker never spoke to me again and like others before and after me I was cast out.

The speaker is a proud, stubborn and incompetent obstacle to reform because he has abused the system as badly as the worst parliamentarian.  Time’s up…

Douglas Carswell’s motion in the House of Commons reads:

No Confidence in the Speaker
“That this House has no confidence in Mr Speaker and calls for him to step down; notes that Mr Speaker has failed to provide leadership in matters relating to hon. Members’ expenses; believes that a new Speaker urgently needs to be elected by secret ballot, free from manipulation by party Whips, under Standing Order No. 1B; and believes that a new Speaker should proceed to reform the House in such a way as to make it an effective legislature once again.”

Nick Clegg has today signed the speaker’s exit pass by telling him it is time to go.  Don’t fret, his troughing and incompetence will be rewarded with a peerage and a back seat on the Lord’s Gravy Train.  Once a trougher, always a trougher…