The Sketch: Simon Carr

Will Mr Speaker stand up for backbenchers or mumble in the darkness?

We were deep in the longeurs of Work and Pension question time when a colleague came in and sat in the green leather choirbox beside me. He said: "A plane's crashed in New York. In Queens. Residential." We looked at each other, assuming, as it was easy to assume, that it wasn't an accident.

"Working class district," Frank said. "It's where the firemen live." On the floor of the House, someone was complaining about the lack of affordable child care. It all seemed faint, suddenly.

If it wasn't an accident. America would go mad. And there was Iraq. If it wasn't an accident, America would want to invade Iraq.

And the Commons debated stakeholder pensions and the New Deal for single parents, and the incidence of verbal assaults on benefit officers. Tiny minister Ian McCartney was scowling and growling just like a bouncer at a disco for the under-10s.

At 3.30pm there was an opportunity for the Commons to rise out of the irrelevance to which it is almost constitutionally condemned.

It may be an error of taste to admire the great pale thing that is Douglas Hogg, but he led the charge, and led it well.

The Government is suspending Habeas Corpus. Many of us have a sentimental attachment to this old statute but the Home Secretary has decided the national life is threatened.

The Act has not yet been published as a Bill, Mr Hogg pointed out, and it cannot be obtained from the Vote Office. Yet it has the force of law. And the minister has declined to come and explain himself to the Commons. It's very, very unusual.

"These are huge changes to the human rights legislation," the former minister Mark Fisher said, pursuing the attack. "At the very least, we need to ask the Home Secretary the basis on which he's making them."

The Speaker varied his standard response ("I have no power to make the minister make a statement.") by suggesting Mr Fisher ask the minister himself.

Tory Richard Shepherd had asked whether there weren't rules that governed ministerial behaviour during a national emergency.

"I can say there are no rules. Thank you." There is an explanation for the Speaker's remark but I'm not going to tell you what it was.

Now then. Speaker Martin claims to have no power to summon a minister. As we know, he's a duffer but, in a general sense, he is correct.

However, the Sketch understands from certain subterranean sources that a Tory has applied for a Private Notice Question on Blunkett's Bill, and that the Speaker will be considering, at midday today, whether to grant the application. If granted, Mr Blunkett will have to present himself to Parliament this afternoon.

The Home Secretary has no plans to make a statement on the matter. The Speaker is left with an opportunity to summon a senior minister to the Commons.

Will the Speaker agree to accept the application? Will he assert the rights of backbenchers and champion the position of parliament?

Speaker Weatherill did. Mr Tebbit complained of it bitterly. Will Speaker Martin demonstrate his virility? Or will he turn into the darkness, shaking his head and mumbling wordlessly? It's not much of a bet, is it?

Simoncarr75@hotmail.com