Ordure, Ordure

As if the venerable institution that was once the Labour Party could get any more muck under its fingernails, along comes Michael Martin to do so.

This case seems to be symptomatic of how far the party has fallen, and the fact that it involves someone who should know so much better, or used to know so much better underlines this.

As with most charges of corruption against the party, it is rather difficult to pin any evidence of definitve wrongdoing on the Speaker, but everyone can see that there is something most rotten in the state of John Smith House - just as they could with Sister Wendy, just as the could with Lobbygate, just as they could see with all these Lanarkshire 'Red Rose' dinners.

If I could be most unlike a little Scotlander at this moment, and praise the relative integrity of the UK's Parliamentary system, because we are fortunate that it does set the highest standards of its members, and when they are found to be lacking, they are generally dealt with. What the Labour Party should stand accused of in my eyes is undermining that system, with its incessant bending of rules that , in many cases it seems they have intentionally created so as to be as malleable as possible.

That's why the SNP victory in May was so special. For the first time in more than a generation, the autocrats, and their floozies at the heart of the once all-powerful Labour Party will now have to be on their toes, for they're getting found out all over the place.

And therein lies a lesson for us gnats - please can we never ever reduce ourselves to this simpering level of impotence and irrelevance?