Cometh the hour, cometh the man?

Posted: Tue 23 Jun 2009 7 01 am

Is this preening careerist the man for the job?

By Edward Heathcoat Amory

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-1194849/John-Bercow-Is-preening-careerist-man-job.html

John Bercow claimed yesterday that 'even a youngish man may acquire wisdom as time goes by', and we have to hope that he is right. This is, after all, the same Bercow who, as secretary to an ultra-right Tory party faction, once recorded the minutes of a right-wing committee as follows:

'It was agreed that the policy of the committee should be: an end to New Commonwealth and Pakistan immigration, a properly financed system of voluntary repatriation, the repeal of the Race Relations Act and the abolition of the Commission for Racial Equality. Particular emphasis on repatriation.'

Yet this is the man now chosen to be the public symbol of our Parliament.
John Bercow

Torie MP John Bercow was voted the new Speaker of the Commons yesterday

Of course, 46-year-old Bercow has performed a remarkable volte face since those noxious views, emerging so far on the left of the Tory Party that his defection to Labour - whose votes secured him the Speakership last night - has long been rumoured. But is this preening careerist really the man to rescue a democratic system facing its greatest crisis of the modern era?

John Bercow's 'political journey', as it has been dubbed, began in Finchley - Margaret Thatcher's constituency - where he went to school before taking a first-class degree in government at the University of Essex.

<snip>

Arriving at Westminster as MP for Buckingham just as his party went into opposition in 1997, he soon made an impact as a Tory attack dog, going into the Guinness Book of Records for asking the longest-ever written question of a minister (10,195 words).

But it wasn't long before, like many rightwingers at the time, he experienced a sudden and dramatic change of heart. He married the Labour-supporting Sally Illman in 2002, and critics remark that 'the trouble with John is that he discovered sex and the Labour Party at the same time'.

He resigned from the shadow cabinet over the issue of gay adoption in 2002, and rejoined before being sacked by Michael Howard in 2004.

At that point, many expected him to defect to Labour, and he certainly enjoys very close relations with the Left. In 2007, Gordon Brown appointed him to lead a review into the education of children with communication difficulties - one of Bercow's three children has been diagnosed with autism.

And when David Cameron was campaigning to become leader the party in 2005, Bercow dismissed his candidature on the grounds that 'Eton, hunting, shooting, and lunch at White's (an exclusive St James's club)' ruled him out.

Many believe that he has been plotting his candidature for the Speakership ever since, and he's known to have sent numerous congratulatory notes to Labour backbenchers whenever they spoke in the House.

The Prime Minister let it be known that he was backing Bercow. And Labour MPs, furious at Michael Martin being forced to resign, have supported him because as one said: 'The Tories have tried to stuff us by taking down one of ours, so we're going to stuff them by voting for someone they hate.'

They think it is a splendid joke - and care nothing for the damage it does to our democracy. So now we have a Speaker who several members of his own party have sworn to try to unseat immediately after a general election.

Hardly the 'ambassador for Parliament to the people' that he would have us believe. Nor has Mr Bercow emerged unscathed from the expenses scandal. It was revealed that he had 'flipped' the designation of his main home, to avoid paying capital gains tax on either the sale of his house in the country or the subsequent sale of his flat in London. He has agreed to repay Â£6,500 to the taxman.

Then it transpired that he has also repaid Â£1,470 to Parliament for unspecified office expenses for which he now realises that he should not have claimed. He has twice billed taxpayers for advice from his accountant on filling in his tax return.

Mr Bercow is hardly above reproach, and he now has his hands on a job which, even if he is sacked tomorrow, gives him a pension of Â£40,000 a year for life. In his pitch to the Commons, he talked about reform and the need to be a 'different style of Speaker' in public, but in private has called for MPs' pay to be increased to Â£100,000.

Which might be music to the ears of dishonourable members, but hardly makes him the 'clean-break candidate' to deliver a new era of change.

_____________________________________________________________

'It was agreed that the policy of the committee should be: an end to New Commonwealth and Pakistan immigration, a properly financed system of voluntary repatriation, the repeal of the Race Relations Act and the abolition of the Commission for Racial Equality. Particular emphasis on repatriation.'

He could have been a member of today's BNP!

Posted: Tue 23 Jun 2009 7 09 am

Impossible! They voted for someone worse than Gorbals Mick

By Quentin Letts

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-1194809/The-House-cheats-nodding-oil-derricks-got-perfect-Speaker.html

There he stood in the big green chair, puffed up like an amphibian that had scoffed too many volauvents. 'My first thought at this time,' he said from Parliament's bully pulpit, 'is, as you will understand, of...'

He was going to mention his wife but at this point a female voice from the Tory benches shouted: 'Your wages.'

The same female voice - Nadine Dorries? - heckled the Father of the House when he announced Mr Bercow's 'election as Speaker'. The voice cried: 'As a Labour Speaker!'

Rancour, partisanship, a figure whose political philosophy dodges round the place like a bouncy ball: yes, folks, the House of cheats and nodding oil derricks just got its perfect Speaker.

They went and did the impossible yesterday. They voted for someone who could be even worse than Gorbals Mick!

Large parts of the Tory benches refused to clap his election and they looked thoroughly sickened, sitting with arms crossed and shaking their heads. Real, gutchurning hatred. Little Squeaker Bercow has his work cut out.

<snip>

Mr Lewis clapped him on the back. The rest of the people sitting round him looked as though they had just ingested a dodgy egg. The response among mainstream Tory MPs? I write this having just finished speaking to one.

Sickened by Labour's support for a philosophical chameleon on the grounds that he was the ultimate non-Conservative, he called Mr Bercow's election 'the worst sort of bloody political shenanigans'.

There is determination among such people that another election for Speaker be held at the start of the next Parliament.

Mr Bercow's little helpers, by then, may be thinner on the ground.

He may find himself sailing out of that Chair faster than a lump of mashed potato off a schoolboy's fork.

Posted: Tue 23 Jun 2009 10 14 am

There's far too much pre-judgement of the man imo.

I think he should be given a chance.

The proof of the pudding being in the eating.

Posted: Tue 23 Jun 2009 5 24 pm

Of course that is true ...

But the very fact that the "progressives" have elected him simply in order to cast a final snook at the Tories before being kicked into touch ... that does not get him off to a very favourable start, does it?

Typical of the basdids, in my reactionary view. Evil or Very Mad

Joined: 05 Nov 2005 Posts: 2977 Location: North of Watford

YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAWWWWWWWWWWWWNNNNNNN
Rolling Eyes

Spartacus

Joined: 05 Nov 2005 Posts: 2977 Location: North of Watford

Bulldog wrote:

There's far too much pre-judgement of the man imo.

I think he should be given a chance.

The proof of the pudding being in the eating.

I agree

Spartacus