Has Speaker Bercow outstayed his welcome?

John Bercow has been an excellent, reforming Speaker of the House of Commons. He has supercharged backbenchers with greater use of urgent questions, for instance, and has also made Parliament more family-friendly. His pomposity while chairing Prime Minister’s Questions – the endless chiding about what the public might think of MPs’ behaviour, often accompanied with tedious jokes about certain members needing to take ‘a soothing medicament’ – was something even the MPs in question could forgive, given they had a Speaker who was making the legislature bolder.

But in the past few months, there has been a shift in the Parliamentary mood. Yes, Bercow still has many supporters on the Green Benches; indeed, some MPs claim that those supporters tend to get called earlier than they deserve in debates. And yes, some of the frustration that was directed at the Speaker in yesterday’s points of order fiesta came from people who were annoyed about Brexit, rather than those who were anxious about procedure.