Is John Bercow the right man to be Speaker?
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Contributing editor
Emily Hohler Jun 26, 2009
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"It was bad enough that Labour couldn't take governing seriously; now it is determined to ensure that parliamentary institutions aren't taken seriously either," says Simon Heffer in The Daily Telegraph on the election for Commons Speaker.
I "couldn't care less" about John Bercow's "bizarre political journey" from "what he thought was ultra-Right to what some of his colleagues think is the ultra-Left", but I do care that he is not "remotely serious" and that 322 MPs thought it "frightfully funny to elect him" because it would annoy the Tories.
By electing him, MPs have given an "insulting V-sign to the British people" and made a "powerful public declaration that they don't value common honesty and decency", says Peter Oborne in the Daily Mail. We needed, and could have had, a figure of "stature and integrity". Instead, we have a "strutting, preening" career politician whose embroilment in the expenses scandal over the 'flipping' of his homes makes his "election to this important post impossible to accept".
"I have no idea whether Bercow will be any good at the job", but the Tories' anger at the rise of a moderniser "raises fresh questions about what they would be like if they win the next election", says Steve Richards in The Independent. Bercow is no "raving leftie": he has made a stand on a few limited issues, including his support for gay adoption and the abolition of the anti-gay Section 28.
And it's ludicrous to accuse him of sucking up to Labour MPs for years in a bid to become Speaker. It was only after the expenses scandal forced Michael Martin out that the vacancy arose.
Until then, it seemed almost certain the election for Speaker would take place in the next parliament, when the Tories are expected to be the biggest party.
If the Tories do win, there has been talk of unseating him. But in truth, Bercow would have to be "caught in a Westminster loo with an entire under-age choir to be defrocked", said Michael White in The Guardian. But is he so bad? His election may be an act of "well-poisoning by a retreating army", but it could also, as one leftwinger assured me, be a genuine attempt to tell voters that the government understands their anger and wants to present them with a "reformist, clean-break candidate".
Bercow may live up to the billing, says The Times. He is "young, eloquent, liberal and an avowed moderniser… He is obviously superior to his predecessor." Indeed, there is "every chance that Mr Speaker Bercow might be remembered as a great holder of the office". The danger is that he is rather too fond of the sound of his own voice and for all his talk of change, too much of a traditionalist.
Bercow needs to be "impatient with traditions that get between Parliament and the voter", to address the expenses issue, and "deliver on the promise made by all the candidates to hand back power to the legislature from the executive".
He faces no shortage of challenges.
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