Would bouncy Bercow go now? Would he heck
THE reign of terror (I use that term not entirely in the satirical sense) began nine years ago. On June 22, 2009, John Bercow was elected Speaker and promised to have gone by today. Yesterday was his last chance to explain to the House why he would be breaking that undertaking. Would he begin the day with a Speaker’s Statement saying why he had changed his mind? Would he beg the indulgence of the House before the weekly Business Questions? Would he heck.
Explanation came there none. The little goblin just bounced up and down on his greenleather, highly-sprung seat, wearing an expression of blithe self- delight. A sharp-pressed grey suit. His Clarks Attackers had been polished. Speaker’s House has hot and cold running flunkeys.
Honour an election promise? Come, come! This is the House of Commons. People here don’t honour their manifesto vows. What a dreadful example it would set if he started behaving as he had pledged. Next you’ll be asking the Tories to reduce taxation and Labour to support Brexit. Get real! As the morning unwound, we had some of the Bercow repertoire of interventions and gaseous emissions.
He loves to make what he thinks are pretty jests mocking others (such as Culture Minister Michael Ellis) for their pomposity. Puff adder to the asp: ‘You’re such a snake.’
Past Speakers would not say the name of the minister and the interrogating MP before every question. Bercow does. He loves the tune of his own flute. He says ‘indeed’ in what sounds like a sarcastic way, as though pricking the importance of a question. The sub-text here: these are just the petty concerns of mere backbenchers, which is what I was many years ago, before I reached my current eminence.
He has favourites, or favourite targets. One of them is John Hayes (Con, S Holland and the Deepings), whom Bercow has known for decades and whose ornate oratory he ridicules. Pipistrelle to the family of noctules: ‘You’re bats.’
I suppose the two men are friends but Mr Hayes could not be blamed for quietly resenting Bercow’s insistence, almost every time he hears Mr Hayes, to make some scoffing remark.
It happened yesterday during Business Questions when Mr Hayes made rather a moving (and, yes, characteristically twirly) point about paupers’ funerals. It was actually one of the more interesting remarks of the week. But Bercow sneered that the Hon Gentleman was a veritable Cicero, or something along those lines. As he did this, he actually pushed his tongue into his cheek. How droll I am, fnarr-fnarr. Why do MPs put up with this unfunny, irascible foot-stamper?
WHY have they not insisted that he honour that pledge to quit after nine years. The Speakership was once revered throughout the kingdom. Today? A target of widespread contempt. Why do they tolerate him? Because parliamentarians operate not on principle but in a market of favours. To borrow from the Book of Common Prayer’s communion service, they do not look to Speaker Bercow that he ‘may truly and indifferently minister justice’. They look to him as a source of personal openings.
In his nine years he has made certain to use the Speakership’s powers of patronage. He has given onetime critics sinecures on his panel of chairs (they run minor debates and are paid generously for that). He has invited a long list of figures, some of them decidedly seconddivision, to give lectures at Speaker’s House. He has let backbenchers drone on pointlessly so that they can work themselves a mention in their local newspapers.
He has picked fights simply to earn the approval of various niche interest-groups. And this week he has sucked up hard to the Scots Nats, trying to grease his way back into their favour after they walked out of PMQs last week.
A naked, batey, oleaginous opportunist, caner of expenses, setting his face against a key election promise: he is, indeed, the perfect embodiment of our parliamentary class. Nine more years!