michael martin, the discredited current speaker of the house, is hoping to salvage his currently pathetic reputation by tabling a motion within the next couple of days to bring in emergency legislation to repress all protest outside parliament.

he has held secret meetings, with the final one today, not recorded in Hansard, to iron out an agreement with representatives from westminster council, city hall, the metropolitan police, and the home office.

the plan is first of all to transfer the pavement area of the square from its current westminster council ownership to the greater london authority run by tory boris. this would mean that the square bye-laws, which control camping, and other activities including the display of banners, would then cover the pavement area where the tamils are currently sheltering their hunger striker, and where brian haw has his long-standing peace campaign.

the second part of the orwellian plan is to change the anomaly that means that in the socpa area around parliament, the public order act cannot be used. currently, socpa legislation controls all aspects of protest management in the area, and police are unable to use section 14 of the public order act to make demands on a protest in terms of its size, situation, length of time, and noise levels. michael martin is formulating a change to the law so that the public order act will apply.

the new arrangements and legislation will be announced over the next few days, and mr martin will table a motion in the house which he expects to pass through unopposed in a matter of weeks.

clearly he is confident that our weasel politicians, having already agreed to widely abusing their expenses, will next quickly agree on repressing any protests held against them outside our supposed democratic parliament. mr martin is quite probably right.

brian haw and barbara tucker have vowed to challenge any new legislation applied to their 24/7 vigil for peace. they take the view, supported by human rights legislation, that a government cannot deny access to one group of people in an area where the ordinary public can go about their daily business. the peace campaign has never been involved in any sort of violent disorder (the only grounds under which they could be banned under human rights legislation).

they are currently trying to take their case, for an end to harassment, to the european court, after recently discovering new papers from a confidential meeting at new scotland yard. these show that when the police swooped on brian's protest display on 23rd may 2006, they did so with the foreknowledge and "full support of police actions by both houses and 'Black Rod'".

brian haw believes that the seizure of his property that night was unlawful, but the problem with the new revelations is that it means he cannot possibly receive a fair trial in this country, since the highest judicial level in the land (the house of lords) is directly implicated in the decision to seize. there was never any power of seizure granted under the socpa legislation, and the authorities are relying on an arcane interpretation of the criminal law act section 3 to defend that night's operation.

it is thought that having run out of legal means to repress brian's protest, the government will seize this window of opportunity to try and rid themselves of their 'problem'. it is amazing that in the midst of the expenses quagmire, the utterly reprehensible mr martin found time to meet with the men in suits today to put the final touches to this plan.

the speaker, mr martin, has a sordid history as a politician himself. he has in his time used more than £20,000 of taxpayer's money on lawyers to try and counter negative press stories. he has tried to block the publication of MP's £5m yearly travel expenses under the freedom of information act. we wonder why? last year he was accused of using official business airmiles for his family's recreational travel. his communication chief had to resign last year after misleading the press over £4000 of taxi expenses incurred by mr martin's wife. he also used £1.7m taxpayer's money to refurbish his home last year.

he is likely to face a vote of no confidence next week, but will certainly gain some support from politicians for his plans to stamp out the voice of conscience outside their "work"place.

roll on the summer of rage!