Pumped up and psyched, he was doing what he loves best

... hears the Speaker’s gushing self-tributes

JOHN Bercow was, as sportsmen like to say, up for it. Stirred. Psyched. Super-pumped. For a moment, as he hoisted himself from his padded throne, I thought he was going to start pumping his legs up and down the way footballers do when they’re waiting in the players’ tunnel.

The Speaker had been required to rule on whether MPs could vote on Boris Johnson’s Brexit deal after it had been kiboshed by the Letwin amendment on Saturday.

Forget the fancy-dan robes and the other fripperies that come with the chair, this is the part of the job Bercow loves best. It gives him the opportunity to opine at length to the House, to flex his wellhoned procedural expertise. And if the ruling also ends up stuffing the Government in the process, well, that’s all the better.

He rose just after 3.30pm. In his hands was a thick wodge of typed paper. Uh-oh, this was going to be a long one. The motion, he announced, would not be debated today. To do so would be ‘repetitive and disorderly’.

The SNP cackled boisterously. Behind the Speaker’s chair, Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell gave his protege Laura Pidcock (Lab, NW Durham) the jumping eyebrows, as if to say ‘bingo!’. At the other end of the chamber, Nick Boles (independent, Grantham and Stamford ) proffered a mighty smirk.

Ordinarily, that should really have been the end of it, but no. The Speaker wished to inform us all how he had arrived at his verdict. The pages he read from dripped with gushing self-tributes. ‘I have done what I believe to be right’; ‘the judgment I have made is an honourable one’ ; ‘I have made a principled judgment.’

At times, he placed a spare hand on his heart, as if to accentuate sincerity. At others, he swayed it gently through the air like a barrel-chested maestro conducting an orchestra. Andante, yes, that’s right, now mod-er-ato. Bene! Each word was like Puccini to his own ears.

We were even treated to impersonations of Tony Benn and Margaret Thatcher’s home secretary Lord Whitelaw. Only when James Cartlidge (Con, South Suffolk) shouted something I couldn’t hear was his flow stymied. Bercow’s lip twitched with indignation. For a moment, I thought he might hop over the benches and wallop Cartlidge one.

POINTS of order followed. Kevin Brennan (Lab, Cardiff West) accused the Government of ‘playing games with the House’. Sir William Cash (Con, Stone) urged the Speaker to reconsider. Angela Eagle (Lab, Wallasey) rambled on and on about an ‘overly powerful executive’. Eh? ‘I wish we were!’ hollered Michael Fabricant ( Con,