In Defence Of Speaker Bercow… and Sally Bercow

John Bercow has met a lot of hostility in the hard right press and blogosphere since becoming Speaker.  The latest shot across his bows comes after the gallery lunch on Thursday, with a Conservative Home columnist saying he has made an “awful start” and Quentin Letts continuing his obsessive vilification of the Speaker through his Daily Mail column.

It is all nonsense of course.  A certain clique of very right wing commentators have been determined to have a pop at Bercow since before he became Speaker.  As an MP he didn’t share their narrow, tribal, right wing definition of Conservatism.  For these commentators, the Speaker was never going to be able to do anything right.

People very quickly forget that the expenses scandal had brought Parliament to an all time low in the eyes of the public.  John Bercow was the most reformist of the candidates for Speaker at a time when Parliament was in major need of reform.  He was undoubtedly the right man for the job.

And since becoming Speaker, he has carried on with the reformist credentials.  In my opinion, he has made a very good start.  He has massively increased the number of questions that backbenchers are able to ask at Question Time; he has increasingly allowed the use of Urgent Questions to hold the Government to account.  Unlike his predecessors, he has made quite clear that Parliament should be the first to hear announcements.  In his chairing of debates, he has tried to move debate away from the bear pit, rowdy style of politics that so turns off an increasingly disengaged public.

The fact that he decided to move away from archaic, outmoded ‘traditional’ dress is another sign that he is serious about modernising the chamber.  The fact that some commentators picked up on the Speaker’s traditional dress at a time when Parliament is in historically low public esteem just shows how out of touch many of Bercow’s critics are.

These are of course the same critics who, in a blast of neo Victorian sentiment, loudly condemn Sally Bercow for daring to hold a political opinion that is not their own.  She has every right to hold whatever opinion she chooses.  Any idea that the wife of the speaker should give up her right to hold independent views and take whatever course of action she feels fit is, quite simply, outdated and misogynist.

Parliament is held in historically low public esteem.  As an institution it needs to reform in order to meet public expectations of Parliament and politicians.  At long last we have a Speaker who understands that Parliament needs to go a long way to recover its public reputation.  Taking pot shots at a Speaker who understands the need to reform is going to do nothing to restore the image of Parliament in the eyes of the public.

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2. ‘Sunlight is the best disinfectant’
3. Defence of civil liberties is a fundamental part of progressive Conservatism
4. In Defence Of The Working Class ‘Flutter’
5. A Defence Of Red Toryism