34 days until he said he’d go

also reiterated that he was ‘confident’ Mr Bercow would step down by next month as he previously promised. The Speaker had originally pledged to leave next month, but later claimed the general election meant he would stay longer.

Mr Bercow, who has faced calls to resign over allegations of bullying staff who worked for him, is said to have called Mrs Leadsom a ‘stupid woman’ under his breath on Wednesday, before adding that she was ‘f***ing useless’.

Mrs Leadsom was reported not to have heard the comments. The Speaker’s office did not deny he had made them.

The row provoked further fury yesterday when Labour MP Barry Sheerman demanded Mrs Leadsom’s resignation, tweeting that the controversy had been ‘spun by Tory Whips as fault of Speaker’.

But Scottish Tory leader Ruth Davidson hit back, writing online: ‘Is Barry Sheerman REALLY trying to mansplain why a professional woman, when sworn at and called useless at her place of work, should take the blame?’ She dismissed his intervention as ‘ridiculous’.