Bercow’s in the frame...

IT LOOKS like John Bercow’s parting two-fingered gesture to Parliament. A £19,500 taxpayer-funded artwork planned in his last days as Commons Speaker went on display in Portcullis House last week – and has proved as divisive as Mr Bercow himself. I’m told representations were made to stop the photograph being displayed, but the 11 cross-party MPs on the Speaker’s Advisory Committee on Works of Art ‘unanimously’ accepted it at the start of the year.

The photo, right, has colourful shapes that apparently represent the 2019 Election.

‘It looks like a busted kite caught in the trees’, said one MP, adding the money should have been spent elsewhere.

And a fellow MP thought the ‘dreadful’ painting looked like the sort ‘sold by Early Learning Centre to be put above kiddies’ cots.’ Then again, Parliament and pre-school aren’t that far off these days.