HOW MUCH SUPPORT CAN JOHN BERCOW COUNT ON?

KNOWING how to count is often the key to winning any political battle. No politician can survive in office if the arithmetic of their support does not add up to a majority.

John Bercow is the latest politician having to do some tricky calculations. The Commons Speaker faces an effort to oust him from office when Parliament returns next week. Tory MPs, angry at his attack on Donald Trump and the admission of his opposition to Brexit to a group of students, will begin putting their signatures to a Commons motion calling for a debate of no confidence in his speakership which takes place on Monday.

Supporters of Mr Bercow claim to have done the maths and totted up that their man is safe. The Speaker, a Tory before taking the non-party post with a duty of impartiality, can count on the backing of most Labour and other opposition MPs. Many of them applauded him for railing against the alleged “racism and sexism” of the US President from the Speaker’s Chair.

Labour whips are already advising party frontbenchers to declare their support for the embattled Commons official. And many Tories may be uncomfortable about the distraction of trying to force out the official in the middle of the Parliamentary wrangling over Brexit.

However, while his support may add up to a majority, Mr Bercow’s foes still believe they have enough strength to cause fatal damage to his authority.

“The Speaker needs respect across the House. It is clear Bercow does not have that anymore,” one Tory involved in the plot told me.

Mr Bercow’s predecessor Michael Martin, who faced a revolt over his handling of the Westminster expenses scandal, quit after just 22 MPs signed a Commons motion calling for a vote of no confidence in his speakership.

The vote was never held because he realised his authority had been destroyed whatever the ballot’s outcome.

By convention, former speakers are given peerages on retirement. Mr Bercow may find himself on the crossbenches in the House of Lords, free to air his views on any subject he chooses, rather sooner than he expected.