It’s a conspiracy! Bercow fury at bid to halt peerage

JOHN Bercow yesterday raged against a Tory ‘conspiracy’ to deny him a peerage as a new victim came forward to make bullying allegations against him.

Mr Bercow’s former private secretary is understood to have become the third senior figure to make a formal complaint against him.

Yesterday, the former Speaker said it was ‘ blindingly obvious’ that there was a ‘concerted campaign’ to stop him being a peer. It came as Labour deputy leadership candidate Dawn Butler weighed into the row, claiming Boris Johnson was bullying Mr Bercow.

In an interview with the BBC’s Broadcasting House programme, Mr Bercow said while ‘ every Speaker for the last couple of hundred years’ had received a peerage, he accepted there was no automatic entitlement to one.

Asked whether he believed his chances of a peerage had disappeared, he replied: ‘I didn’t say that. You asked me whether there was a concerted campaign ... and I said it is blindingly obvious that that is so.’

Mr Bercow stood down as speaker in October after a decade, during which he faced accusations of bias over Brexit as well as questions over his own behaviour.

Yesterday it was revealed his former private secretary Angus Sinclair, 67, had passed a dossier of claims that he was bullied by his former boss to the Commons bullying and harassment helpline. His complaint follows those of Lord Lisvane, a former clerk of the House, and Lieutenant- General David Leakey, previously Black Rod, a senior Lords official.

Mr Bercow responded to the complaints yesterday by telling the BBC that while he had had two disagreements with Mr Leakey, ‘ neither remotely amounted to bullying’ and there was no ‘regular rancour’ between the two. And while he accepted his relationship with Mr Sinclair had broken down, he believed the two had parted on good terms and an allegation that he had thrown his phone at him was ‘absolutely not true’. He added: ‘He was not bullied. There was an honourable difference of opinion and that is the end of it.’

The three complaints were made as sources close to the House of Lords Appointments Commission told the Sunday Times it had ‘serious’ concerns about two of

Labour’s peerage nominations. Jeremy Corbyn is said to have nominated Mr Bercow and Karie Murphy, his controversial former chief of staff. ‘Bercow will not be approved,’ a source told the paper. It came as Miss Butler told Sky’s Sophy Ridge on Sunday that refusing to give Mr Bercow a peerage was in itself a form of bullying.