Light-but-no-Illumination

Why isn’t the position of ‘Crown Steward and Bailiff of the Manor of Northstead’ one of the busiest public offices in Yorkshire? Under the Act of Settlement a person who holds an office of profit under the Crown is disqualified from being an MP. Surely many MPs have treated their job and expense accounts as for personal profit.

The Manor of Northstead was once a collection of fields and farms in the parish of Scalby in the North Riding of Yorkshire. By 1600 the manor house had fallen into disrepair (like the reputation of our Houses of Parliament). The manor was purchased by King Richard III and although Scarborough Corporation purchased the land known as the Northstead Estate from the Crown in 1921, the lordship of the manor was retained by the Crown. The site of what may have been the manor house is now covered by the lake in Peasholm Park.

The position Crown Steward and Bailiff of the Manor of Northstead is now used as a procedural device to effect resignation from the House of Commons, since British MPs are not permitted simply to resign their seat. This office is used alternately with the ‘Crown Steward and Bailiff of the Chiltern Hundreds’ as a means of removing someone who is no longer able or wants to be an MP. Recent holders of the office at the Manor of Northstead include Boris Johnson (too allow him to become Major of London), Peter Mandelson, Enoch Powell, Piers Rolf Garfield Merchant (victim of a kiss and tell sexual affair), Ian Paisley, Robert Kilroy Silk and Mathew Parris.

Come on the ‘Expenses Scallies’ do the decent thing now! Do not wait for the next election to stand down but take up your new post at The Manor of Northstead right now and create some bi-elections.