MPs, Diversity, Women & Michael Martin

"A special committee of MPs, known as a Speaker's conference, is looking at reasons why more women, people with disabilities and from ethnic minority backgrounds do not put themselves forward for election or get selected as candidates.

The inquiry was prompted by Gordon Brown asking Speaker Michael Martin to look at how Parliament could be made more representative."

Well for a start Mr. Brown, Parliament could be made more representative were you to begin being truthful and answered questions instead of relying on prevarication and repetition of your mantra about how right you, and only you, are. It could be made more representative if MPs agreed to publish all their expenses and allowances and desisted from passing laws affecting the country but opting out of their responsibility to be accountable under the terms of said laws. It could be made more representative were your government to honour its manifesto promises, the result of which would be cancellation of this country's membership of the European Union. It would also be more representative were MPs to desist acting like 'apian puppets' and voted for what their constituents  - you know, those people they are supposed to represent - wanted, rather than following the 'party line'.

There are grounds for believing it a tad hypocritical of Speaker Martin to host a conference to deal with the ethics of representation when his own ethics of impartiality, probity, and possible misuse of position have been called into question.

When the basic principles relating to the conduct of its members have been 'transparentised' and all its procedures truly democratised, then may be the time to discuss the question of diversity.