Speaker's wig had a purpose

Posted: Thu 25 Jun 2009 8 34 am

Speaker's wig had a purpose
Telegraph View: This is not the time for the Commons to replace institutions with personalities.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/telegraph-view/5627222/Speakers-wig-had-a-purpose.html

At first sight the decision by John Bercow, the new Speaker, to wear a lounge suit and to eschew horsehair wig, breeches and buckled shoes seems unimportant. "It's not me," he remarked of the traditional gear. That is precisely the point. He may not understand the value of the traditional dress â€“ for who explicitly analyses even their everyday wear? The matter, though, is very much larger than Mr Bercow.

What the Speaker wears is not part of some silly Ruritanian game. The peculiar dress is there to set him apart from the run of people and to embody a special role. In Britain, it is observable that the more elevated the role, the more archaic the dress. The Queen or King do not look silly in a crown. There is no need to explain what the crown is there for. Without words, it speaks for the constitutional status that the nation accords its wearer. For a similar reason, it was a mistake to make High Court judges give up their wigs and robes in favour of a plain Euro-style gown: when a judge sits beneath the Lion and Unicorn, he is not merely a clever lawyer, he is invested with authority.

Formal clothing is a universal human tendency. Any civilisation worth its name gives ancient dress to authorities and sacred figures. It is as true of old Tibet or Japan as of our European culture. With all old things that command respect, only a fool tears them apart for the sake of a fad, especially a political one. The history around us is not a rubbish heap but an inheritance. Our constitution is strong and flexible because it has been tried by the centuries. It endures in institutions and traditions. It was irresponsible of the Labour administration to "reform" the House of Lords by taking it apart, like a valuable clock, without being able to set the mechanism working again properly. Nor is this the time for the Commons to replace institutions with personalities.

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"It's not me"

How this sums up all that is wrong with the selection of this Berk-Cow to become Mr Squeaker!

I hope the next Tory parliament de-elects him immediately the House re-convenes after the General Election. They might even consider putting up a candidate against him in his constituency?

It is the convention that the Mr Speaker stands unopposed for re-election - a convention always observed by the Conservatives, and frequently broken by the progressives, both Labour and Liberal-Democrat. How they would howl if the Tories followed suit!

Joined: 13 Aug 2005 Posts: 2902

Totally agree, and indeed I would take it a step further to suggest that many of the current problems in Parliament are connected with the loss of the wig.

By wearing the wig and the rest of the costume, as the article so clearly expresses, the Speaker shows his or her realisation that he is far less important than the role which he inhabits. So too, Parliamentarians who realised that Parliament was far greater than they are far more likely to behave with a suitable dignity about their affairs than grubby professionals who see it as the latest job in their progression up the greasy pole.

Of course, wigs and buckles don't make a person more of less honest in themselves - however, their rejection can be (and is in the current case) a signal of the exaltation of self over office.