BERCOW THE BULLY BOY
ORDER! Explosive book reveals the appalling extent of Speaker’s phone hurling, spittle-f lecked tantrums
ORDER! Many of the nastiest were directed at women – despite his claims to champion diversity
ORDER! He blew his top when he couldn’t take toiletries on a plane – and if Arsenal or Federer lost
ORDER! Friends blame fact that he was bullied at school and was once locked in a tumble dryer
THE shouting echoed round the corridors. Inside the Speaker’s apartment at Westminster were two men: the Speaker himself, John Bercow, and Sir George Young, then Tory Leader of the Commons. ‘George had his weekly meeting with Bercow, and they had a disagreement,’ says a former ex-whip colleague. ‘George is the most mild-mannered person you’ll ever come across – the most courteous, polite person.
‘It ended with Bercow screaming, shouting and swearing at him – jabbing his finger in his face, spittle flying from him. George said, “I don’t think there’s any point in my continuing this conversation,” and just walked out.’
The ex-whip said of Eton and Oxford-educated George: ‘How on earth was he supposed to deal with that? The bullying was appalling. The doorkeepers used to tell us about all the shouting, especially in the evenings.’
When people in politics talk about Speaker Bercow, there is no shortage of such anecdotes. Indeed, so serious have been the claims of bullying and harassment that an explosive BBC2 Newsnight investigation in 2018 prompted two official inquiries – one by Dame Laura Cox – into the culture of behaviour in Westminster. Bercow himself had admitted a year earlier that he had a propensity to be aggressive from the chair.
‘I tended, particularly early on, sometimes to react to displays of bad temper or anger rather officiously,’ he said.
To outsiders, Bercow’s eccentricities and unique use of the English language have made him a figure of intrigue. But those on the receiving end of his reprimands lament the trivialisation of his behaviour, which they believe speaks to an underlying character failing.
COX published her findings in October 2018. The 155-page report was devastating. The High Court judge had identified a culture ‘of deference, subservience, acquiescence and silence, in which bullying, harassment and sexual harassment have been able to thrive and have long been tolerated and concealed’. More than 200 people had come forward to provide testimony. After quoting several contributors who said that meaningful change to the culture at Parliament would take ‘several generations’, Cox argued: ‘I find it difficult to envisage how the necessary changes can be successfully delivered, and the confidence of the staff restored, under the current senior House administration.’ The conclusion was interpreted as a call for Bercow and other senior House of Commons staff to step aside.
Bercow has been not only one of the most eccentric characters in our national life but also one of the most contentious. In many ways, he was the Speaker for the times: divisive, polarising, abrasive. For better or worse, he was undoubtedly one of the most consequential.
For my book, I spoke to more than 140 people from across Bercow’s life. For many of his friends, the notion that he could bully someone is well beyond their comprehension.
For those who have incurred or witnessed Bercow’s wrath, they cannot fathom how other people are unable to see what to them is self-evident.
Many of those who had run-ins with Bercow now have a deep hatred of him – a real visceral hate. Over time, the resentment had grown strong and they were more than motivated to try to throw him under a bus.
Meanwhile, many opposition MPs wilfully buried their heads in the sand over some of the more concerning claims about Bercow’s behaviour while promoting his ‘progressive’ values.
Bercow is not the first politician, nor will he be the last, to go on a ‘journey’. But his is one of the more notorious.
Just how did a former member of the ultra-Right-wing Monday Club – and secretary of its Immigration and Repatriation Committee – become the darling of the liberal Left?
How could an ardent Eurosceptic end up not only voting Remain in the EU referendum but even helping to choreograph the resistance to a No Deal Brexit? There are those who have known him since childhood who believe the man he would become was shaped by a number of formative early experiences.
At school, Finchley Manorhill comprehensive in North London, some classmates once bundled him into a launderette, opened a dryer, tossed him inside and the door shut. ‘John was bullied because he was an idiot and he didn’t know when to shut up,’ says a former schoolmate, adding that the young Bercow would often invite the vitriol on himself by taunting his fellow pupils if they made mistakes in class.
Another acquaintance describes how, during Bercow’s time as a politics undergraduate at Essex University, a fellow student stuck a slice of pizza to a noticeboard with the caption ‘Portrait of John Bercow’ – a reference to the acne which plagued him in his youth, and which has, it’s said, long been a source of insecurity.
‘One of the things that drives John to a complete and utter frenzy is being thwarted,’ says a member of the Lords. ‘And I think that characteristic of going berserk is an indication of a real lack of confidence in yourself. That’s quite sad – that he has to bully his way through because otherwise he might get bullied.’
Bercow retains the same ability to provoke strong and contradictory reactions. To many friends and colleagues, he is a thoughtful, humorous and kind man.
Yet for others, especially those who have incurred or witnessed his legendary tantrums, Bercow is ‘vile’, ‘appalling’, ‘loathsome’ and ‘a large ego’ who will stop at nothing to further his career.
‘I’m not sure he believes in anything other than his own ego,’ says a former acquaintance from his student politics days. ‘He was always having rows with people. Whether it was little man syndrome, I don’t know,’ adds former Tory whip Keith Simpson.
And David Cameron remembers: ‘I used to have a rule: when I got out of bed, I always used to think, “Whatever John Bercow can do to make my day utterly miserable, he will.” And on the whole, it was a very good guide to life.’
WHEN John Bercow, the son of a London taxi driver and his actress wife, became Speaker in 2009, he was the 157th person to hold the office, as well as the first Jewish politician to do so. His pitch for the job had focused on three main ideas. First, in response to the Commons expenses scandal, he pledged to implement radical reforms to MPs’ allowances.
Second, to restore more authority
I’m not sure he believes in anything other than his own ego
to Parliament he committed to granting more so-called Urgent Questions, enabling greater scrutiny of legislation. Third, he vowed to be a reforming Speaker, reconnecting Parliament with the society it seeks to represent.
‘I do not want to be someone; I want to do something,’ he told MPs. ‘I want to implement an agenda for reform, for renewal, for revitalisation, and for the reassertion of the core values of this great institution in the context of the 21st Century.’
There can be little doubt that in many of these ambitions he has achieved considerable success. He has earned praise for championing diversity in senior positions and for the introduction of modernising reforms such as a Commons creche. He has consistently championed the right of smaller parties and backbenchers to be heard.
But his changes have come at what many would consider a high price. ‘He has been an amazing reformer,’ says Baroness d’Souza, former Speaker of the Lords. ‘But he hasn’t got there by being nice to everyone. I think he’s got there in spite of being particularly not nice to most people – and actually fiendishly rude.’
One of those who can attest to his ‘fiendish rudeness’ is his former private secretary Kate Emms, whose family have now spoken for the first time about some of the indignities they say she endured before she quit the post after just months.
Appointed in 2010, Emms was, say contemporaries, the ‘standout’ candidate for the job. And yet Bercow has stated that he never warmed to her. One theory for this is that he believed her to have been imposed on him by Commons insiders hoping to increase their influence in the Speaker’s Office.
Those close to Emms say trouble began when she started travelling with Bercow on overseas trips.
‘They were stressful because they were one-on-one for so much of it. That’s the truth,’ says a family member. On consecutive September weekends in 2010, the pair went to Ottawa and then Nairobi. The second trip followed an address by the Pope at Westminster Hall, an event in which Emms had been closely involved.
Afterwards, Emms and Bercow departed for the airport. According to Emms’s friends and family, she then had to inform Bercow that his bag, which contained large-size toiletries, would have to be checked in, rather than going as hand luggage. This reportedly provoked an outburst from Bercow – said to have been particularly intimidating in the back seat of a car – including reference to Emms’s ‘presumption’ in making such a judgment, and denigrating her competence.
Other sources recall a similar incident when Bercow was found with toothpaste in his carry-on luggage at airport security. A family member says: ‘He was absolutely outraged that his toothpaste had been confiscated. He thought that was profoundly disrespectful. He didn’t talk to Kate for the whole of a nine-hour flight, which was ridiculously out of proportion.’
Insiders claim that Bercow was consistently demanding. During one tirade, a source claims he called Emms a ‘jobsworth’, while others close to her say she was never sure what mood she would find her boss in. ‘She never knew what she was going to get. The worst was pretty bad, and the best was all sunshine and marvellous,’ says a former colleague.
Friends recalls the impact this unpredictability had on Emms, including one occasion during a trip to Poland when she anxiously chased down the hotel chambermaids’ bins to fish out Bercow’s conference scribbles, in case he asked for them later.
Her friends recall confidences about Bercow being ‘vile’, ‘unpleasant’, ‘inappropriate’ and ‘appalling’ one day and then apologising to her the next, insisting it would never happen again.
One former colleague likened Bercow’s consistent sweeping denials of bullying as ‘gaslighting’ [using psychological means so someone doubts their own sanity]. Emms has never spoken out publicly about working with Bercow. But many colleagues, both past and present, are categorical about her experiences, and stories continue to circulate. One concerns the Speaker’s official portrait, commissioned when Emms was his private secretary. The painting featured him standing in the chair, with his private secretary in view. Emms, the first female Speaker’s secretary, posed for the artist while in the role. However, when the portrait was unveiled, she had been replaced by her successor, Peter Barratt. ‘I remember that happening. That was the most vindictive and petty thing,’ says a family member.
Bercow says the painting was in progress when Emms left the office, and so it was updated accordingly. Another former staff member, Libby Bradshaw, who worked in the MPs’ Commons Library for many years, remembers: ‘He was one of the ones that, when he came to the door, people’s heart sank and you said, “Oh God.” You just never knew what mood he was going to be in. He would flip.’
She tells how when she was on night duty once, Bercow phoned with an inquiry. He then sent along his researcher to collect the information, which Bradshaw had placed ready in a tray. However, the researcher returned emptyhanded after failing to locate the relevant envelope.
Bercow went to find Bradshaw half an hour later. ‘Are you Elizabeth?’ he asked, before launching into a tirade. She recalls: ‘He went on and on and on, proper loud shouting. I just literally picked it up and gave it to him, because it was there. He just stormed out: no apology, nothing. It felt like for ever, this tirade of abuse.’
During this incident, Bercow apparently referred to Bradshaw as a ‘little girl’. ‘I don’t think he swore. It was just very pompous. He definitely called me “little girl”,’ she says. ‘I was about 30 and I’d been working there for years.’
A spokesman for Bercow said he had no recollection of this event.
But it was not just subordinates and staff members who found themselves on the wrong side of the Speaker.
During a session of Prime Minister’s Questions in May 2017, he was
It’s an odd skill to have, but he is REALLY good at being unpleasant to other people
reportedly heard by an MP mouthing ‘stupid woman’ and, allegedly, ‘f***ing useless’ or ‘f***ing outrageous’ following an exchange with former Leader of the House Andrea Leadsom.
The comments, which went against Bercow’s perception of himself as a progressive reformer, were passed on to a media outlet by the MP.
Bercow admitted to using the word ‘stupid’ in a ‘muttered aside’ but stopped short of apologising. The matter would not end there, however. At the end of 2018, a furious row broke out in the Commons after Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn appeared to mouth ‘stupid woman’ at Prime Minister Theresa May during PMQs.
A rebuke from the Speaker followed. ‘It is incumbent upon all Members of this House to operate in accordance with its best conventions and to follow the conventions and courtesies,’ he pronounced. ‘If a Member has failed to do so, that Member has a responsibility to apologise.’
Leadsom signalled that she would like to intervene. ‘I would just like to ask, after your finding that individuals who are found to have made unwelcome remarks should apologise, why it is that when an Opposition Member found that you had called me a “stupid woman”, you did not apologise in this Chamber?’ Leadsom asked, to gasps of astonishment from MPs.
The episode was damaging for Bercow. A source close to Leadsom says she felt compelled to speak out. ‘She said, “The thing with bullies is that if you don’t stand up to them, they get away with it. I don’t want to. I have to.”’
Such behaviour seemed, say others, entirely at odds with the Speaker’s stated support for diversity and the promotion of minority groups within the Commons.
Indeed, former Tory MP Anna Soubry said: ‘When I became a Minister, I’m afraid there were a number of occasions when he publicly humiliated me. It was awful. There have been a number of instances when he would pick somebody and deliberately humiliate them in a way that is profoundly… not just unfair, but profoundly unseemly in somebody who holds such an incredibly powerful and important office. It’s a complete contradiction with the other things that he clearly believes in and he stands for.’
Significantly, too, during Commons Brexit debates, Bercow’s patience with the May government was wearing thin. Her officials’ main gripe was the length of time he would keep her at the Despatch Box for statements, with sources noting that Mrs May suffered from type 1 diabetes.
IN THE course of researching Bercow’s story, accounts of alleged bullying have emerged in relation to three other people, all of whom have yet to make allegations or be associated with complaints against him.
We will call them Person A, Person B and Person C and to further protect their identities, their pronouns have been changed to ‘they’ or ‘them’. Of the three, two have spoken for the first time about their experiences, under strict anonymity. A source who was close to Person A said: ‘He did have a bit of a reputation for not being nice to a member of his staff. I’ve heard that he made them cry on a number of occasions after shouting at them.’
The fortunes of Bercow’s favourite sports stars would often dictate how he would behave on a given day, says Person B.
‘If you heard that Arsenal or Roger Federer had lost, you’d know what you would be walking into that morning. That is not normal. The only way I could describe it is he would throw a paddy – stamping, slamming doors, screaming.’
Such is Bercow’s borderline obsession with Federer that another former employee recalls him crying after the Swiss tennis player lost. Person B also recalls Bercow hurling phones, car keys or stationery when angry.
‘More than one person in the office would have to fix his phone after he broke it. He would throw it into the fireplace and then ram the battery in the wrong way round.’
Person C says: ‘He is the most appalling human being I have ever met. He is that bad. He is a truly, truly despicable and loathsome man, in my view.’
Describing their exchanges, Person C says, if they tried to interpose during one of Bercow’s rants, he would pounce and say: ‘I’m sorry, you find that funny, do you? Oh, that’s very interesting.’
They say that sarcasm and belittling were the tools he employed. They continue: ‘He is really good at it; he is really, really good at being unpleasant. It is quite an odd skill to have in life, and Bercow has it in abundance.’
BERCOW himself has stated: ‘For the record, I categorically deny that I have ever bullied anyone, anywhere at any time.’
And yet it appears to be an issue that refuses to go away. In January, three months after he stood down, Corbyn nominated Bercow for a peerage.
The news reignited the accusations of bullying. Former Clerk of the House Robert Rogers, now Lord Lisvane, was the first to lodge a formal bullying complaint.
Another is David Leakey, the former Black Rod with whom Bercow clashed on many occasions, including during a row about where the Speaker’s wife, Sally, should be seated at Westminster Hall during a visit by Barack Obama.
‘Without any warning, he just leapt up from behind a chair and thumped the table.
‘He just went into a torrent of rage about it,’ says a source who is familiar with what took place.
And last month, Angus Sinclair, his former private secretary, became the third to lodge an official complaint. Sources say that others are contemplating coming forward.
In a combative television appearance, Bercow dismissed Leakey as ‘utterly ignorant’ – again categorically denying the bullying claims against him.
He also claimed there was a ‘conspiracy’ against him entering the Lords.
Meanwhile, Emms, who still works at Westminster, is said to be distraught Bercow may still get a peerage.
‘She had been genuinely convinced that he would not be around the place after retiring,’ says a source close to her.
‘Also, getting a peerage would be a complete travesty; it would reward bad behaviour that we all know about.’
As for his legacy, former Conservative Minister Sir Malcolm Rifkind says: ‘He’ll be one of the most interesting, fascinating, perhaps one of the most successful, but he won’t [go down as] a great Speaker.
‘Why not? Because of his personality. He’s a bully.’
Abridged extract from John Bercow: Call To Order, by Sebastian Whale, published by Biteback at £20. Offer price £13.50 (33 per cent discount) until April 30. To order, go to mailshop.co.uk or call 01603 648155. Free delivery on all orders – no minimum spend.
He is the most appalling human being I have ever met. He is that bad