John bercow

What’s John Bercow up to these days? The ex-Speaker is enjoying the limelight, of course, but he isn’t necessarily cashing in. Last Friday, he did a solo gig at a community centre in Holland Park where his appearance raised thousands of pounds for a local charity. He charged no fee. And he spent time before and after his speech chatting happily to anyone who approached him. But then Bercow has always liked to talk. His parents, who noticed their son’s verbosity, said: ‘John, generally speaking, is generally speaking.’ He made this joke against himself during his hour-long speech. It wasn’t his only essay in self-mockery: ‘We may be short,’ he

When John Bercow was House of Commons Speaker, there was a sense on both sides that he was a politician who did not think much of Brexit. Despite the role of Speaker being a supposedly neutral job, Bercow’s decisions regarding Commons procedure led many to suspect that he held strong views on the issue. Now Bercow has confirmed this. Just six days after Bercow left his ‘high chair’ (as Boris Johnson called it), the former Speaker has said Brexit is ‘the biggest foreign policy mistake in the post-war period’. So did Bercow’s views on Brexit make it hard for him to be impartial when he was speaker? Not so, Bercow told

John Bercow, at his last ever PMQs, heard tributes from all sides of the house. ‘Best speaker I’ve seen,’ said veteran Ronnie Campbell. ‘You have stood up for democracy,’ oozed the SNP’s Ian Blackford. Tory Nigel Evans: ‘No one has done more to promote LGBT rights than you. I salute you.’ And he dipped his head like a nun honouring a marble Virgin. Jeremy Corbyn managed a dig at the Speaker’s self-regard. ‘I hope you’ll indulge me one moment while I say a word about you.’ He paused. ‘I’m sure you will.’ The best tribute came from Boris whose playfully ironic speech contained a charge-sheet of near-criminal acts. He started

It was hardly a surprise that this afternoon John Bercow ruled out allowing the government to bring back its meaningful vote on Brexit. Still less of a surprise that this ruling took up nearly an hour in the Commons of points of order from MPs on all sides making points which changed the minds of no-one, and certainly not the Speaker. The Speaker’s argument was as the one the Tories had been preparing for over the weekend: he ruled that it would be ‘repetitive and disorderly’ to hold a second vote on the same motion. What they perhaps hadn’t prepared for was the Speaker doing a series of impersonations of

Poor John Bercow is suffering from a lost voice this morning, which is somewhat unfortunate for a Speaker. But fortunately he has Peter Bone watching out for him. The Brexiteer Tory MP has taken to his feet in the Commons to express his concern for Bercow, suggesting he takes some time out to recover: ‘The Speaker is clearly suffering from his voice and he does put enormous hours into the chair. Would it be appropriate, or would the leader recommend whether the Speaker is asked not to chair those sort of debates, particularly so on the European Union, to protect his health?’ ‘The expression ‘dream on’ springs to mind,’ said Bercow.

MPs who aren’t in the process of defecting to the Liberal Democrats are using their conference recess to phone around their colleagues canvassing for the next Commons Speaker. Lindsay Hoyle is, according to YouGov, the favourite to win, but Harriet Harman and Chris Bryant are also running strong campaigns, along with Meg Hillier. Then there are the Tory candidates: Eleanor Laing, Sir Henry Bellingham, Shailesh Vara and Sir Edward Leigh. All of them are promising to stand up for parliament, albeit in rather different ways. Leigh, for instance, promises to ‘seek by my conduct and dress to submerge my personality into the office and keep business flowing’ (which if nothing

Early this morning at around 2am, the Commons witnessed some of the most extraordinary behaviour seen in the Chamber in living memory, as MPs attempted to protest the prorogation of parliament. Below are the strangest moments from the morning: 1. Labour MPs attempted to stop the Speaker John Bercow from leaving his seat as he was called to the Lords to carry out the formal procedure for proroguing parliament. The left-wing MP for Brighton Kemptown and famed mace swinger Lloyd Russell-Moyle briefly lay across Bercow’s lap before being pulled off by a member of Commons staff. 2. Bercow made one of his signature verbose pronouncements, declaring the government’s prorogation ‘an act of

I didn’t think the smug triumphalism of the Remainer Alliance could get any more nauseating, but this afternoon it did. I’m thinking of John Bercow’s announcement that he’s stepping down as Speaker of the House of Commons and the 90+ minutes of sycophantic tributes from all those MPs who think the electorate made a grave mistake in voting to leave the European Union. Honestly, the Conservatives should produce a highlight reel and release it as a Party Political Broadcast during the next General Election campaign. Here was the political class in Westminster at its worst – lavishing praise on the Speaker because they’re so appreciative of his efforts to obstruct

The title ‘Father of the House’ tends to give the bearer a chronic problem with wind. The present holder, Ken Clarke, stood up at PMQs and asked a question of Gibbonian magnitude and complexity. Among the gusts of prose was a useful point about spending. ‘It would be extremely unwise for the outgoing government to make reckless commitments,’ he said. He was ignored. Member after member tried to cadge money from Mrs May before she quits the Downing Street cash-pile. The Conservative MP Marcus Jones wanted a handout for shops in Nuneaton, while Paul Scully made the case for SEN children. Tim Loughton, whose constituency abuts the sea, proposed a

The trouble with Mr Speaker, even when he makes the right decision, is his motives. Fame is the spur and so is his love of hurting the Conservative party which nurtured him. However natural these feelings, they are completely wrong for the Speakership. The occupant of the chair is supposed to be a pillar of the constitution, not its talking gargoyle. A sad feature of the Brexit story has been how so many people with important official roles have not seemed to understand or, in some cases, even to care, what those roles entail. The Chancellor of the Exchequer and the Governor of the Bank of England are supposed to