John bercow

Why John Bercow blames Jo Swinson for thwarting the plot to stop Brexit

What’s John Bercow up to these days? The ex-Speaker is enjoying the limelight, of course, but he isn’t necessarily cashing in. Last Friday, he did a solo gig at a community centre in Holland Park where his appearance raised thousands of pounds for a local charity. He charged no fee. And he spent time before and after his speech chatting happily to anyone who approached him. But then Bercow has always liked to talk. His parents, who noticed their son’s verbosity, said: ‘John, generally speaking, is generally speaking.’ He made this joke against himself during his hour-long speech. It wasn’t his only essay in self-mockery: ‘We may be short,’ he

Lindsay Hoyle’s biggest achievement? Making Parliament boring again

The biggest news of the week, obviously, is the conclusion of the drama which has rocked Britain for the past 12 months: the moment the EU Withdrawal Bill finally made it through the Commons. Blanket coverage of Thursday night’s vote may have led to some readers being unaware of some of the other news stories of the week, such as the shooting down of a Ukrainian airliner in Iran and the announcement by the Duke and Duchess of Sussex that they no longer wish to work as full-time royals. Or maybe not. How astonishing, given all those days of destiny that we had throughout 2019, that hardly anyone seems to

Letters: How to squash a Speaker

No special protection Sir: Rod Liddle’s joke that the election might be held on a date when Muslims cannot vote, thereby reducing support for Labour, has apparently led to outrage. There has been no similar outrage over your front cover (‘A vote is born’), which satirises the Christian nativity by portraying Johnson, Corbyn and Swinson visiting the stable in Bethlehem. It should be a principle of free speech in any free society that all religions are equally subject to satire, criticism and even gentle mockery; there should be no special protection for one set of beliefs over another. In allowing satire about two mainstream religions in the same issue, you have

John Bercow blasts Brexit

When John Bercow was House of Commons Speaker, there was a sense on both sides that he was a politician who did not think much of Brexit. Despite the role of Speaker being a supposedly neutral job, Bercow’s decisions regarding Commons procedure led many to suspect that he held strong views on the issue. Now Bercow has confirmed this. Just six days after Bercow left his ‘high chair’ (as Boris Johnson called it), the former Speaker has said Brexit is ‘the biggest foreign policy mistake in the post-war period’. So did Bercow’s views on Brexit make it hard for him to be impartial when he was speaker? Not so, Bercow told

John Bercow wasn’t the only one crying at his final PMQs

John Bercow, at his last ever PMQs, heard tributes from all sides of the house. ‘Best speaker I’ve seen,’ said veteran Ronnie Campbell. ‘You have stood up for democracy,’ oozed the SNP’s Ian Blackford. Tory Nigel Evans: ‘No one has done more to promote LGBT rights than you. I salute you.’ And he dipped his head like a nun honouring a marble Virgin. Jeremy Corbyn managed a dig at the Speaker’s self-regard. ‘I hope you’ll indulge me one moment while I say a word about you.’ He paused. ‘I’m sure you will.’ The best tribute came from Boris whose playfully ironic speech contained a charge-sheet of near-criminal acts. He started

Why everyone benefitted from Bercow’s refusal to allow today’s meaningful vote

It was hardly a surprise that this afternoon John Bercow ruled out allowing the government to bring back its meaningful vote on Brexit. Still less of a surprise that this ruling took up nearly an hour in the Commons of points of order from MPs on all sides making points which changed the minds of no-one, and certainly not the Speaker. The Speaker’s argument was as the one the Tories had been preparing for over the weekend: he ruled that it would be ‘repetitive and disorderly’ to hold a second vote on the same motion. What they perhaps hadn’t prepared for was the Speaker doing a series of impersonations of

Watch: Peter Bone’s concern for John Bercow’s lost voice

Poor John Bercow is suffering from a lost voice this morning, which is somewhat unfortunate for a Speaker. But fortunately he has Peter Bone watching out for him. The Brexiteer Tory MP has taken to his feet in the Commons to express his concern for Bercow, suggesting he takes some time out to recover: ‘The Speaker is clearly suffering from his voice and he does put enormous hours into the chair. Would it be appropriate, or would the leader recommend whether the Speaker is asked not to chair those sort of debates, particularly so on the European Union, to protect his health?’ ‘The expression ‘dream on’ springs to mind,’ said Bercow.

Can the next Speaker put parliament back together again?

MPs who aren’t in the process of defecting to the Liberal Democrats are using their conference recess to phone around their colleagues canvassing for the next Commons Speaker. Lindsay Hoyle is, according to YouGov, the favourite to win, but Harriet Harman and Chris Bryant are also running strong campaigns, along with Meg Hillier. Then there are the Tory candidates: Eleanor Laing, Sir Henry Bellingham, Shailesh Vara and Sir Edward Leigh. All of them are promising to stand up for parliament, albeit in rather different ways. Leigh, for instance, promises to ‘seek by my conduct and dress to submerge my personality into the office and keep business flowing’ (which if nothing

How John Bercow saved me from Short Man Syndrome

I think my colleagues on the pro-Brexit side of the aisle have been a little unkind in their response to John Bercow’s announcement that he’ll be standing down as chief referee in the House of Commons. Yes, he’s clearly done everything in his power to make life as difficult as possible for those MPs who want to implement the result of the 2016 referendum. Yes, his attitude to parliamentary precedent has been completely inconsistent, citing obscure, supposedly binding conventions to obstruct Brexiters one minute, then casually disregarding longstanding constitutional conventions the next. And, yes, the language he uses to express his contempt for any Conservative MP who so much as

Portrait of the week: The Speaker resigns, BA pilots strike and Mugabe dies

Home A bill sponsored by Hilary Benn and supported by Alistair Burt and other dissident Tories was passed — becoming the European Union (Withdrawal) (No. 2) Act 2019. It commanded the Prime Minister to send by 19 October a letter of stipulated wording to the President of the European Council requesting that the deadline for Britain leaving the EU under Article 50 be extended until 31 January. Boris Johnson, the Prime Minister, said he’d ‘rather be dead in a ditch’ than ask for an extension. The government was twice defeated on a motion for a general election to be held on 15 October. A tearful John Bercow told the Commons

The six strangest moments from Parliament’s prorogation protest

Early this morning at around 2am, the Commons witnessed some of the most extraordinary behaviour seen in the Chamber in living memory, as MPs attempted to protest the prorogation of parliament. Below are the strangest moments from the morning: 1. Labour MPs attempted to stop the Speaker John Bercow from leaving his seat as he was called to the Lords to carry out the formal procedure for proroguing parliament. The left-wing MP for Brighton Kemptown and famed mace swinger Lloyd Russell-Moyle briefly lay across Bercow’s lap before being pulled off by a member of Commons staff. 2. Bercow made one of his signature verbose pronouncements, declaring the government’s prorogation ‘an act of

Steerpike

Who will replace John Bercow as Speaker?

Now that John Bercow has announced his imminent departure, an inevitable political bun fight will surely follow. The outgoing Speaker told colleagues that he would be stepping down from his post by 31 October, the day the UK is supposed to leave the European Union. The move comes after the Business Secretary Andrea Leadsom told the Mail on Sunday that the Tories were planning to break with convention and field a candidate in his Buckingham constituency at the next election. So who will replace the controversial Commons referee? The most likely runners and riders are outlined below: Lindsay Hoyle (Lab) The most obvious choice for the next Speaker of the

John Bercow’s nauseating farewell

I didn’t think the smug triumphalism of the Remainer Alliance could get any more nauseating, but this afternoon it did. I’m thinking of John Bercow’s announcement that he’s stepping down as Speaker of the House of Commons and the 90+ minutes of sycophantic tributes from all those MPs who think the electorate made a grave mistake in voting to leave the European Union. Honestly, the Conservatives should produce a highlight reel and release it as a Party Political Broadcast during the next General Election campaign. Here was the political class in Westminster at its worst – lavishing praise on the Speaker because they’re so appreciative of his efforts to obstruct

Stephen Daisley

John Bercow has been a necessary defender of Parliament

John Bercow’s decision not to stand for re-election will bring some satisfaction to Brexiteers after several miserable weeks. The Speaker has been nakedly partisan, personally spiteful in the chair and done more to resist Brexit than the entire Labour Party put together. Many Tories consider him a jumped-up little twerp with an over-inflated sense of his constitutional significance but he is their jumped-up little twerp, one who entered Parliament by pandering to hard-right prejudices and whom backbench Tories rallied behind in 2015 when the Coalition government tried to get rid of him. Then Leader of the House William Hague concocted a plot to oust Bercow by introducing a secret ballot

Katy Balls

John Bercow offers a parting shot as he announces plans to quit

Whatever happens in this evening’s election vote, John Bercow will not be the House of Commons Speaker come 1 November. The Speaker announced his plans to quit in the Chamber this afternoon to a mixed reception from MPs. Bercow said he had promised his family he would not stand for re-election and planned to stick by the promise: ‘At the 2017 election, I promised my wife and children that it would be my last. This is a pledge that I intend to keep. If the House votes tonight for an early general election, my tenure as Speaker and MP will end when this Parliament ends. If the House does not

There’s nothing wrong with Jacob Rees-Mogg lying down in the Commons

If you are a journalist covering politics this year, every moment is a bad moment to take a holiday. I took a short one last week in search of grouse and arrived at Hunthill, the proud Scottish fastness of our host Henry Keswick, to find that Boris Johnson had promised to prorogue parliament. Since the party included a cabinet minister, another Member of Parliament etc, it all felt a bit like a John Buchan novel. As I watched the beaters approach us across the moor, I imagined it as the sort of scene Buchan describes so well in which the appearance of seemingly innocent sport on the hill is in

John Bercow picks his favourite parliamentarian of all time: himself

John Bercow addressed a packed crowd at the Edinburgh festival yesterday. He was gently quizzed by Susan Morrison who hailed him as ‘a grown-up in charge of the nursery’ at Parliament. She asked why he decided to swap the Speaker’s ‘full wig, stockings and buckled shoes’ for a business suit and a plain academic gown. ‘Out of date and passe’, said Bercow. He claimed that ‘young people’ had expressed keen support for his ‘approachable’ new costume. The togs may be modern but Bercow’s language belongs to the 18th century. ‘Nay’ is a favourite. ‘The Speaker is asked, nay, instructed to assume the chair.’ He calls debates ‘contestations’. He talks of

John Bercow’s authority has now collapsed

The title ‘Father of the House’ tends to give the bearer a chronic problem with wind. The present holder, Ken Clarke, stood up at PMQs and asked a question of Gibbonian magnitude and complexity. Among the gusts of prose was a useful point about spending. ‘It would be extremely unwise for the outgoing government to make reckless commitments,’ he said. He was ignored. Member after member tried to cadge money from Mrs May before she quits the Downing Street cash-pile. The Conservative MP Marcus Jones wanted a handout for shops in Nuneaton, while Paul Scully made the case for SEN children. Tim Loughton, whose constituency abuts the sea, proposed a

Why John Bercow seems to delight in irritating Tory MPs

Once again, the Commons has concluded its day with rather chaotic scenes involving Tory MPs having a scrap with John Bercow. The Speaker managed to refrain from insulting anyone’s abilities as a whip, but he nevertheless irritated those who want a third meaningful vote by insisting throughout a series of points of order that he was not contradicting himself when he said he would not allow Theresa May to bring her deal back to the Commons while also allowing for another day of indicative votes. Some Conservative Brexiteers were angry that any more indicative votes are due to take place when the Commons has offered no one view tonight. But

The problem with Westminster is that politicians don’t do their jobs

The trouble with Mr Speaker, even when he makes the right decision, is his motives. Fame is the spur and so is his love of hurting the Conservative party which nurtured him. However natural these feelings, they are completely wrong for the Speakership. The occupant of the chair is supposed to be a pillar of the constitution, not its talking gargoyle. A sad feature of the Brexit story has been how so many people with important official roles have not seemed to understand or, in some cases, even to care, what those roles entail. The Chancellor of the Exchequer and the Governor of the Bank of England are supposed to