Paul Goodman writes about Mr Speaker over at ConHome.
In office, Mr Bercow might have neutralised himself (so to speak) politically and in due course night have mollified most Tories. But he hasn't (yet) - and of course his loose-cannon wife does him no favours for which one can only pity him, wondering wickedly about their private conversations... but let's get on.
His gravest error, which he must surely now regret if he has any wit at all, was to disdain the regalia of his office which are there for a purpose: to show that the office is greater than the office-holder, as with court and judicial dress. Thus Mr Bercow made clear both his unedifying vanity and his intention to superimpose himself on the ancient office of Speaker. This was contemptuous, and probably fatal to his reputation and place in history, although I doubt he realised the enormity of his action at the time. The ridicule in which he is held by many may have caused the truth to begin to dawn... but probably not.
Traditions survive ─ when they do ─ for a reason, but the apostate-Tory Mr Bercow pointedly dismissed the very suggestion. And so he no longer enjoys the protection afforded by traditions which he so airily waved away in favour of his own egotistical, modernising urges. He may wish he had the warmth of the regalia around his shoulder when ordure-bearing Arctic winds start to blow in earnest. His pathetic, petulant, shouted demands for 'respect' will prove bootless: he has personally abolished the means to acquire the very respect he craves.
And so by his own hand he positions himself as the mere simulacrum of a Speaker, nothing more than an annoying lucky pole-vaulter beholden to the doomed, dishonest leaders of the most corrupt and incompetent governing party in the modern history of the House of Commons, at least half of whose Members despise him and wish him gone. He remains in the Speaker's Chair only because the House and the country have serious business to attend to and dealing with him as he deserves would be a distraction.
Madam Speaker Boothroyd, now. She was the real thing ─ and she has the measure of Mr Bercow.
Couldn't agree more. However, the House had an opportunity to get rid of Bercow but not one MP (even Carswell whose "Object!" was not above a whisper) shouted loud enough to force a re-election of the Speaker on the first day of the present parliament. They are all contemptible as is Bercow.
ReplyDeleteThat said, it warms my old age to see the idiot-electors of Buckingham get their comeuppance as their MP - the egregious Bercow - has apparently turned (or, more likely, been turned by Mrs Bercow) against hunting with dogs. You would have to have a heart of stone . . . . . .