Seven Speakers beheaded? We want more, the Tories shouted
SPEAKER Bercow having just been re-elected unopposed, Theresa May approached the despatch box and said: ‘At least someone got a landslide’. This won a big laugh. Even her most bulgy-eyed critics had to concede it was a classy tension-breaker.
Prime Minister May, so awkward on the stump, has always been at ease in the Commons Chamber. In that, and much else, she is the opposite of Jeremy Corbyn.
The new House assembled for the first time but it did so only briefly. The election of a Speaker is always first thing on the agenda and then they go into days of swearing-in. The State Opening may or may not occur early next week.
Both Mrs May and Mr Corbyn were given a whoompf of cheers when they arrived. Mr Corbyn was wearing a fat red rose in his lapel. Tory MPs are well-enough trained not to clap in the Chamber (it is against the rules) but Labour MPs leapt to their feet to give a hearty ovation to Mr Corbyn. He did his toothy smile and gave them a campaign-trail wave. Even Corbyn critic Neil Coyle (Lab, Bermondsey & Old Southwark) clapped, though sans enthusiasm. A feathering of the palms.
Momentum commissars will be watching Comrade Coyle VERY closely. One loose word and he’ll be off to the salt mines.
When the DUP’s Westminster leader Nigel Dodds entered, Mrs May gave him a little nod of greeting and a knowing smile. A few wits on the Opposition benches suggested to Mr Dodds that he should go and sit on the Tory benches.
Speaker election day is always pretty grisly, full of pious talk about how honoured they all feel to have been elected and how they will behave with decorum in the service of the country, the whole country and nothing but the country. Likely one! Ken Clarke, being the new Father of the House, was in charge of preliminaries.
Black Rod turned up, did some Gilbert & Sullivan palaver and summoned them to the House of Lords to hear the Crown’s official gubbins establishing the new Parliament. Most of the bigshots went but Boris Johnson stayed on the front bench. Liz Truss mewed in his ear.
When the principals returned, Mr Bercow said from a place on the Tory benches: ‘If the House so permits, I shall be happy to serve in this Parliament.’ The preposition is worth noting: ‘in’, not ‘throughout’. He added: ‘We appear to be headed for testing times. I offer myself as a tested Speaker.’
Cheryl Gillan (Con, Chesham & Amersham) made a dreadful speech proposing the Squeaker’s re-insertion in the Chair. She managed to say that Mr Bercow had shown himself to be ‘utterly impartial’, ‘an effective Speaker’ with ‘great patience and good humour’, and that he ‘fosters a sense of community among those who work in the precincts’.
In that last remark she may be right – Bercow unites opinion among Westminster staff in that they dislike the little martinet intensely. But on the other claims, it is just as well that Mrs Gillan was not speaking on oath.
When Mr Bercow had earlier made a joke about how he did not seek to serve four decades as Speaker, Labour MPs had shouted: ‘More!’ When Mrs Gillan said seven Speakers had been beheaded, Tory MPs now showed what they thought of him by shouting: ‘More!’
COME the moment for Bercow to be ‘dragged to his seat’, this was done by Labour’s Alison McGovern and the Tories’ Helen Grant, both of whom he kissed. Sir Peter Bottomley (Con, Worthing W) also helped drag Mr Bercow Chairwards. Sir Peter fled before Mr Bercow could snog him.
In a brief speech, Mr Corbyn said: ‘Democracy is a wondrous thing and can throw up some wondrous results.’ Tory voice: ‘You lost!’
Labour MPs definitely looked the happier yesterday but a few Philip Hammond snoozathons from the despatch box should swiftly return them, and the sketchwriting community, to a slough of despond.