Tim Stanley:
The Speaker is one of the last guard of the liberal elite. And there are serious charges against him
By tradition, the newly elected Speaker of the House is dragged to his seat by fellow MPS. The current incumbent will probably have to be dragged out of it. John Bercow promised to step down by June this year, but has recently said he’d like to serve the full parliamentary term. Who would want to give up that lavish apartment in Westminster Palace, where John and Sally Bercow get to play at being a first couple? They are our very own Juan and Eva Peron.
All is not perfect at the Casa Rosada, however. There have long been rumours that Mr Bercow is a horrible boss. During the last attempt to force him out, in 2015, Charles Walker MP made an off-the-cuff reference to a “weakness” the two men share: “We both have a temper.”
Now, to me a taste for pretty cars and fast girls is a weakness. If guilty, berating, belittling and abusing people is a case for dismissal. Mr Bercow is currently accused of all three. Kate Emms, his former chief of staff, says she suffered post traumatic stress disorder after working less than a year for him. David Leakey, former Black Rod, described “intolerable” rudeness and “explosive” behaviour. Angus Sinclair, another ex-chief of staff, spoke of physical intimidation, mimicry and obscene language.
The Speaker has been referred to the parliamentary watchdog and denies everything. Robin Fell, who served as principal doorkeeper in the Commons, insists he always found him “wonderful”, adding, “he does have a reputation that he doesn’t suffer fools gladly”. Mr Fell’s advice is “to not be a fool”.
Well, that’s an insufferable thing to say. What qualifies Mr Bercow to pass judgment on anyone’s intelligence? Do you believe that Mr Sinclair, Mr Leakey or Ms Emms are fools? And yet there are defenders of Mr Bercow, who seem to think he is the victim of a witch hunt by Tories who cannot bear to see the son of a taxi driver sitting in the Speaker’s chair. The Commons chaplain points out that he is “not an establishment figure”.
On the contrary, he is establishment to his finger tips. Mr Bercow’s character and politics betray him as one of the last guard of the liberal political elite, triangulating with the wind. He started out on the Right of the Conservative Party and followed the herd to the Blairite centre.
By the end of the Brown government, it was rumoured he might even defect, and that political journey was key to his success. The man elected Speaker in 2009, in the middle of the expenses scandal, wasn’t spotless: he’d flipped the designation of his main and second homes, avoiding capital gains tax (something he admitted and later paid). But here was a Left-wing Tory the Tories hated. That made him the natural choice for many Labour MPS.
This dynamic has coloured his speakership ever since. It doesn’t technically matter whether or not Mr Bercow does display bias against the Government, although I share the view that his tiresome, unfunny interjections – replete with enough name-dropping to fill a phone book – tend to be directed against the Tories. No, what’s crucial is that the Speaker commands respect across the entire House, and he clearly does not.
I’ve heard him described as a wrecker. It might seem an odd word for an establishment figure, but Britain has long been dominated by elites who are unsympathetic towards the ancient institutions they run. The Church has principally been ruined by its bishops; schools by headmasters. Now we have a Speaker of the Commons whose instincts clash with its traditional ethos.
I’m not talking about cutting out the fancy gowns: these sorts of reforms began long before Mr Bercow. No, I mean his attempted acts of “modernisation” such as offering the job of Commons clerk – a role where having an institutional memory of House procedure is vital – to an Australian with insufficient experience of our system.
The goal was possibly to dilute the authority of the clerks, increasing Mr Bercow’s, which is how elite liberals work: their reform projects always happen (by sheer coincidence!) to concentrate their power.
And, worst of all, any bullying used to get their way is masked by Leftwing virtue. Mr Bercow has let us know he was for Remain and against Trump, and thus is a jolly good person – just like Lord Adonis, whose goodness was unimpeachable until he tweeted a scummy cartoon about Sajid Javid. It’s a classic equation: the more liberal someone is in public, the more intolerant they often are in person.
If anyone’s coming after Mr Bercow because of who he is or where he came from, that would be wrong, but this is about protecting our democracy. A democracy is composed of institutions, and if institutions are weakened by tinkering or scandal, they decay.
Mr Bercow was a dangerous appointment. His critics fear he fancies himself to be not just the chair of the Commons but a mini-president of a republic he inhabits in his own head. If he refuses to vacate the palace, it’s time for MPS to storm it.