Lamb-Like MPs Blame Speaker For Leading Them Into Sin

Angry MPs have made it clear that the Speaker of the House of Commons is a charismatic leader of a heretic cult, whose saturnine influence led them all astray through the malignant force of his irresistible personality.

"I was a gentil and parfait knight, as the loyal serfs of my consituency will attest, before I fell under the sway of Speaker Martin," said a furious Sir Edwin Hideage (Con., Motton Bayleigh). "But this demon appeared to me in a vision, urging me to refortify my castle in preparation for the coming apocalypse. It is entirely due to his weasel words that I claimed two groats for work on repointing the battlements, four guineas for Greek fire and four shillings and ninepence for trebuchet maintenance. I shall of course repent my sins by distributing these moneys among the lepers who huddle beneath the walls of my stronghold, but verily I say that Speaker Martin is a cavorting imp of Satan, and demand that he be subjected to trial by newspaper."

"Speaker Martin journeyed through the realm, offering absolution from expenses, and when he came to my constituency I did call him to my presence and demand that he explain the expenses system to me," confessed a shaken Robert Blague (Lab., Warden of the Cinque Estates). "His honeyed tongue did lull me into sinful dreams of riches, leading me to indulge in the shameless flipping of hovels, contrary to the teachings of Our Lord Jesus Christ. In contrition, it is my intent to do penance for a week in a converted sty, for I am but an innocent lamb lured from the flock; but I call for this knave to be subjected forthwith to Holy Inquisition by the heralds."

Members, who only last week were vying to abase themselves in the eyes of the enraged peasantry, jostled and fought in their efforts to outdo each other in describing the dismal betrayal of their faith in the expenses system administered by the sin-gorged mendicant. Speaker Martin himself, however, stood impassively erect as serjeants-at-arms bound him firmly to his gilded chair (John Lewis, £15,499) atop a huge pile of faggots at the head of the debating hall, all the while rending the air with his cries to Lord Gordon, his patron, to save him.

His unholy master was, however, notable for his silence, absorbed as he was in the apparent study of the chamber's decorative ceiling bosses.