The Labour MP who tried to draw a line under Bercow controversies
HE WAS the clubbable, honest backbench champion who was brought in to heal the post-brexit rifts in Parliament in the wake of the damaging speakership of John Bercow.
The biography on Sir Lindsay Hoyle’s website says he stood in 2019 on a pledge “to keep MPS, staff and their families safe, to be an impartial chair and improve the image of Parliament”.
In his acceptance speech, he stated that “this House will change, but it will change for the better”. Most importantly, he pledged to be a “transparent” Speaker.
He also courted cross-party popularity by naming his menagerie of pets after parliamentary figures from across the political system: parrot Boris, tortoise Maggie and cat Attlee.
Sir Lindsay has made it clear he wants to stay Speaker after the election, but yesterday’s events mean his career may end sooner than he wants.
His promises on impartiality and transparency look distinctly tarnished. He had defined himself entirely in opposition to Bercow, who gained the reputation of being strongly partisan in his opposition to Brexit.
Now Sir Lindsay stands accused of being partisan towards his former party – Labour – and many Conservatives are wondering whether they can trust him again.
The speaker is from a very political – and very Labour – family. He attended his first Labour conference with his father Doug as a babe in arms, and from the age of seven he campaigned for his bids to get elected to Parliament. In 1980 he was the youngest-ever councillor to be elected in Chorley, Lancs, and worked his way up to become deputy Labour leader. When he became MP in 1997 he was the first Labour candidate to be elected for 18 years on the seat, and he has kept it ever since, even when the Tories returned to government.
In his early years he seemed a harmless eccentric, campaigning for London’s Heathrow Airport to change its name to Diana, Princess of Wales Airport after her death.
Tony Blair called him a “loony” when in 1998 he asked the prime minister to look into the supposed involvement of “British security agents” in Paris on the fateful night.
He put down a series of parliamentary questions and asked Mr Blair to “clear up some of the secrecy and controversies” over the affair.
Sir Lindsay later clashed with Mr Blair over issues such as tuition fees and Gibraltar, but over the Brexit debate he stayed above the fray. He is one of the few MPS never to have said which way he voted. His tenure as Speaker has been pretty free of controversy but his actions yesterday risk undermining the trust and respect he has enjoyed.