Michael Martin is due on Wednesday to hold his traditional reception amid the grandeur of the State Rooms in the Speaker's House to mark the Queen's Most Gracious Speech.
Michael Martin is due on Wednesday to hold his traditional reception amid the grandeur of the State Rooms in the Speaker's House to mark the Queen's Most Gracious Speech.
However, the champagne and canapes might not slip down quite as easily as they have done on previous occasions because of the tumult that is gripping Westminster over "Greengate", as it has inevitably been dubbed.
Indeed, as MPs prepare for the new parliament in less than 48 hours' time, the public arrest, searches - complete with purple rubber gloves - and nine-hour questioning of the honourable member for Ashford in Kent will doubtless lead to the sound of knives sharpening over the future of the Glasgow MP's Speakership.
Yesterday, Jacqui Smith hit the airwaves to insist Scotland Yard had operational independence and officers had to be allowed to "follow the evidence where they need to". The Home Secretary insisted there had been a "systematic series of leaks" from her department, which dealt with the most sensitive of information. Sir David Normington, the chief civil servant, was so concerned about the level of the leakage that he called in the Met.
A week or so before Damian Green's arrest, Christopher Galley, 26, an assistant private secretary in the Home Office whose responsibilities included organising ministers' diaries, was arrested on suspicion of being the mole.
Perhaps a key element of this whole affair is that the Conservatives' spokesman on immigration was arrested "on suspicion of conspiring to commit misconduct in a public office and aiding and abetting, counselling or procuring misconduct in a public office".
The "conspiracy" element suggests the Yard suspected this was more than an MP simply getting the occasional brown envelope, a practice that has gone on since there was information to leak.
Detectives believed that a serious line might have been crossed, hence the counter-terrorism unit's involvement, the confiscation of computer files and bank statements, the suspension of an e-mail account and the need to search an MP's offices and home using up to 20 officers.
It was also reported that Mr Galley four years ago stood as a Tory candidate for local elections in Sunderland, raising suspicions of a party political motive. If the civil servant is found guilty of leaking official information, he could be sacked for breaching the Official Secrets Act.
Of course, none of us - other than those PC Plods involved in the investigation - knows precisely the extent and nature of all the leaks. We know some of them appear to be fairly routine: disclosure that 5000 illegal immigrants worked in the security industry and the list of potential Labour rebels against the 42-day detention proposal for terror suspects.
But there are elements of Greengate that do lead to more questions. Dominic Grieve, the forensically minded shadow home secretary, has already fired off 45 and there might be more.
First, there is the coincidence that the Green arrest occurred the day after Westminster was prorogued and on the day Sir Ian Blair left his job as commissioner of the Metropolitan Police. Reports yesterday suggested Scotland Yard was in turmoil with senior figures saying the handling of the arrest was "catastrophic".
Then, there were claims Mr Galley was used to "lure" Mr Green into incriminating himself during a series of phone calls, but the MP refused to be drawn into conversation. The Metropolitan Police vehemently deny any claim of entrapment.
Finally, in a twist worthy of Watergate, we were told that such was the concern at Tory HQ that the offices of its senior MPs were routinely swept for bugging devices.
Given this is Westminster, any action is almost automatically attributed to political motives by someone. So rumours swirl and suspicions rise.
There is, for example, the intriguing detail that while Tory leader David Cameron and London Mayor Boris Johnson were told in advance of the police raids, neither Gordon Brown, nor Ms Smith, nor any minister for that matter, was informed.
Plus, within minutes of Ms Smith playing a straight government bat, upped popped Harriet Harman to go well beyond the official line and add weight to the growing chorus of MPs' concerns.
The Commons Leader declared how there were "very big constitutional principles" that needed to be safeguarded, including the rights of MPs to get on with their job without interference from the law.
Indeed, the ghost of William Lenthall, one of Mr Martin's predecessors who was Speaker during the Civil War, has been invoked.
It was he who famously told King Charles I where to get off when in January 1642 he was asked to identify a clutch of rebellious MPs and refused to do so, saying: "May it please your Majesty, I have neither eyes to see nor tongue to speak in this place but as the House is pleased to direct me, whose servant I am here."
The King supposedly rode back to Whitehall with the shouts of "privilege of Parliament" ringing in his ears. And here Mr Martin enters the drama.
It is still unclear whether the Speaker sanctioned the police raid on Mr Green's Commons office, as the Glasgow MP is saying nothing.
However, he might find it difficult to hold his tongue come Wednesday.
There are suggestions of an MPs' protest, a demand for a statement and threats of even disruption to the Queen's Speech as the matter of parliamentary privilege - an MP being able to do his or her job properly without let or hindrance - goes right to the heart of our democracy.
MPs on both sides of the House have been critical of the Speaker.
Even Mr Cameron, who has been hopping mad about the whole affair since it first broke, yesterday took a thinly veiled swipe at Mr Martin for apparently "not thinking twice" about allowing officers to mount the Commons raid.
Denis MacShane, the ultra-loyal former Labour minister demanded a statement from Mr Martin, branding the police raid "an unprecedented breach of parliamentary privilege".
And even Ms Harman chipped in: "The Speaker might well want to review the processes by which authorisation is given to search the Palace of Westminster."
Meantime, the PM has assumed the Macavity position, no doubt sensing the irony that he made his reputation in opposition based on leaked information about the Thatcher and Major governments.
Perhaps, it is just a truism that as administrations decay the need for a good plumber becomes ever greater.
