Michael Martin was a rotten speaker, pushed into the job by New Labour because he is the loyalist’s loyalist, having never shown any evidence that he can think. He was never qualified for the job in any way.
But the sight of the troughing toffs ganging up to make a ritual sacrifice of a pleb in the hope that the news agenda will then “move on”, is deeply unedifying.
If this were sufficient of a constitutional crisis for the extreme measure of sacking a Speaker, it is certainly sufficient for the resignation as MPs of the worst individual troughers.
A general election will be best. But unless there are at the very least several by-elections, the MPs who pressured Martin to go will be revealed as simple hypocrites and scapegoat-tetherers.