A peerage that would reek of hypocrisy
Denying John Bercow, the former Commons Speaker, a peerage has been denounced by his supporters as an act of spite. It is a convention that the occupant of so august a position should be elevated to the Lords on retirement at the request of the Commons. Every Speaker, including Michael Martin, the first to be forced from office in 300 years during the expenses scandal in 2009, has been ennobled.
Conservatives have been given peerages by Labour governments and vice versa, always sitting as cross-benchers. This has never been a partisan matter because the Speakership is not supposed to be a partisan office. However, Mr Bercow changed this during his 10 years in the chair, and especially towards the end of his tenure when the battle over Brexit was fought out in the Commons.
While he was expected to demonstrate evenhandedness in dealing with such a deeply divisive matter, he sided with those seeking to frustrate the process and oppose the Government. As if to prove the point, and to irk Boris Johnson, he has now been nominated for a peerage by Jeremy Corbyn.
But there is a problem for the Labour leader. He seems to have forgotten, or not to care, that Mr Bercow was the subject of complaints by Commons officials alleging that he bullied and verbally abused them. He denies this; but an independent inquiry, led by the former High Court judge Dame Laura Cox QC, into working conditions at the Palace of Westminster published two years ago said he had presided over a culture of “deference, subservience, acquiescence and silence”.
Her report said some employees had been bullied or sexually harassed and required to sign agreements promising not to say what happened. While Dame Laura did not blame any individuals, she laid responsibility at the door of the House authorities and, above all, the Speaker.
Now, Lord Lisvane, who as Robert Rogers was Clerk of the Commons and the most senior official working to the Speaker, has passed a dossier of allegations of bullying and intimidation by Mr Bercow to the parliamentary commissioner of standards. The independent appointments committee that vets candidates for life peerages must take account of this alleged behaviour. But is the Labour Party, so assiduous in demanding the protection of employees harassed by their bosses, seriously going to proceed with his nomination? The hypocrisy would be breathtaking.