Clegg joins 'Speaker quit' calls
Pressure on Commons Speaker Michael Martin dramatically escalated when Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg joined public calls for him to quit.
Mr Clegg abandoned Westminster convention that party leaders avoid criticism of the office holder to demand the exit of "a dogged defender of the ways things are".
"I do not think the Speaker should be made a scapegoat...for the individual failings of many MPs," he told BBC1's Andrew Marr Show.
"But equally I do not think we can afford the luxury of a Speaker, who is supposed to embody Westminster, who has been dragging his feet on transparency and greater accountability in the way MPs receive their expenses," he continued.
His intervention comes on the eve of the tabling of a motion of "no confidence" in Mr Martin and reports he is set to announce he will step down next year.
Mr Clegg said: "Convention is that political leaders, party leaders, do not talk about the Speaker.
"My view is that it is exactly that culture of unwritten conventions, unspoken rules and nods and winks that has got us into that trouble in the first place.
"I have arrived at the conclusion that the Speaker must go.
"He has proved himself over some time now to be a dogged defender of the way things are, the status quo, when what we need, very urgently, is someone at the heart of Westminster who will lead a wholesale radical process of reform."
On a personal level Mr Martin was "kind and courteous", he said.
