Ants in his pants, it’s Bercow on a mission to boost his power
SOME sneer about Andrea Leadsom. They say she is too minor a figure to be Leader of the House of Commons. ‘Lacks gravitas, can’t do the statesmanship required, provincial, etc, etc,’ say the received-wisdom brigade.
Yet she performed tidily enough yesterday when taking the weekly questions about future business of the House. She is by no means the worst Leader of the House I have seen.
Anyway, what’s wrong with being provincial? Not everyone worships London. Mrs Leadsom, a keen Brexiteer, was last candidate standing against Theresa May for the Conservative party leadership in summer 2016. The political Establishment – with the assistance of The Times – torpedoed her chances.
What would have happened had she been allowed to see things through to a vote of the Tory membership? I suspected then, no less now, that she might have won on the strength of her optimism and newness.
If that had happened, maybe the Conservatives would have looked fresher and Jeremy Corbyn might not have seemed so alluring to the voters a year later.
Before June’s election it was put about that Mrs Leadsom was for the chop. After the election she retained her Cabinet place and was moved from Environment to the Leadership of the House. The latter is one of the historic offices of our politics and its holder is supposed to represent Parliament in the Cabinet. Yesterday she was subjected to organised complaints about a procedural matter. Labour MPs and one Tory (the incorrigible Sir Edward Leigh from Gainsborough) protested about Conservative MPs boycotting a Labour-organised vote on Wednesday on universal credits. With only Opposition MPs voting in that benefit payments debate, its result became meaningless.
On Wednesday night the Speaker, John Bercow, teetered close to political activism when he harrumphed about the Government not taking the universal credits debate seriously. Mr Bercow is full of agitations at present. Ants in his pants. He is on a mission to increase his own power.
Mrs Leadsom’s Labour opposite number, Valerie Vaz, came over all indignant that the Conservatives were being ‘disresepctful’ to the House in not promising to make legislative changes after ‘losing’ Wednesday’s debate. Miss Vaz (sister of would-be washing-machine salesman Keith) is a friend of Mr Bercow. She came to his rescue in the last parliament when Tories tried to pass a vote that would have made it easier for MPs to vote against him in private.
Sir Edward claimed that this example of the executive ignoring a parliamentary vote was ‘the road to tyranny’. Sir Edward may know something about tyranny, being a fan of Vladimir Putin’s Russia. Miss Leadsom, when she replied, was shouted at hard by Labour MPs.
MR Bercow made little effort to protect her. She kept her cool and stuck to a line about how the Government was ‘littening’. She managed to do this without sounding angry.
The first Leader of the House I saw in action was croaky Sir Geoffrey Howe in 1990. He was succeeded by John MacGregor, punctiliously polite, and Tony Newton, a conciliator. Ann Taylor, Blair’s first Commons Leader, was the opposite. The Blair regime was repeatedly disdainful of Parliament.
Margaret Beckett made a wellbriefed if Kremlinesque Leader. Robin Cook was more fun. John Reid, in his brief spell, managed not to hit anyone – rather a surprise. Peter Hain and Geoff Hoon were stodgy. Jack Straw was masterly. Harriet Harman brought more gaiety to the role than some expected but her tenure was not over-freighted intellectually.
Labour lost office in 2010 and Sir George Young, Bt., became Commons Leader. Never has anyone said ‘get lost’ with greater charm. Andrew Lansley’s mirthless tenure yielded to the more substantial Hague year, since when we have had Chris Grayling (no comment) and the blinky David Lidington.
Mrs Leadsom is thus my 17th Commons Leader. At present I would bat her around 11, but she has only been in the post four months and is likely to improve.