New poll: The Speaker

Well my poll is ridiculously old and I have been trying to think of something decent to ask, but I just haven't been able to - the best I came up with is 'what colour is Gordon Brown's underwear?'

So anyway, I believe the vote for the new speaker is a week away so I've asked about that

For what it's worth I favour Frank Field, Richard Shepherd, Alan Beith and Parmjit Dhanda (in no particular order)

My selections are based on the ones I feel are most likely to be helpful to reform, the others I view as too 'establishment' for the role

Naturally none of my choices have a chance - it seems Labour will scupper Frank Field for being too popular and independent minded reformers are hardly likely to be elected by the current load of traditionalists - Bercow seems to be the favourite and he wouldn't be the *worst* choice - personally I think he's better actually being allowed to have an opinion

There is also the 'Widdecombe Wildcard' - I wouldn't support her if it was up to me, independent she is, but impartial, never - but she is only standing to be an interim speaker, stepping down at the next election

Now that I can agree with, this clamour to restore the authority of Parliament would be best served by having a new Parliament electing a new speaker, rather than let a load of old duffers who are resigning for 'family reasons' choose - I mean, we are going to lose 100-or-so MPs at the election so why should we let them choose a speaker? Couple that with the obvious reality that there will probably be another few hundred casualties and quite a few new Tory MPs it makes sense for the speaker to be chosen then

Then of course there's the irony that none of us will have a say anyway - this time the election is seen as pretty important but we still leave it up to the selfish interests of the party politicians, which wouldn't normally be a problem considering we normally jut regard the speaker as a part of the furniture, but this time it feels like the public should be involved