Knives out for Speaker Bercow
By Ian Dunt
Disgruntled Tories have already begun making attacks on the new Speaker of the House of Commons, John Bercow, on his first day in the post.
Mr Bercow won last night’s vote after a series of ballot eventually whittled down his competitors to just one man, Sir George Young.
But in the final vote, he defeated the Tory liberal with 322 votes to Sir George’s 271.
In an interview with the BBC today, Mr Bercow, who claimed over £20,000 annually over four years to cover the cost of staying away from home when attending parliament, said he would not claim second home allowance.
He wore a suit and tie, and only “simple” robes, for his first day of business today, rather than the more ceremonial dress worn by Michael Martin.
This afternoon he is presiding over questions to the health minister and Harriet Harman’s statement to the house on the new Parliamentary Standards Authority.
The Buckingham MP, who is thought by some parliamentarians to have only received three votes from his own party, had to listen to explicit political attacks on his character on only his first morning in charge.
Nadine Dorries, Conservative MP for Mid Bedfordshire, told the Today programme this morning: “It was almost a two-finger salute to the British people from the Labour MPs, and to the Conservative party.
“The Labour party voting for John Bercow had nothing to do with reform.”
Alan Duncan, shadow leader of the Commons, said: “A lot of Conservatives feel that John positioned himself in order to woo Labour to get the Speakership. A lot of people are annoyed that it worked.”
Today, politics.co.uk was handed comments on Mr Bercow by some of his former teachers at the University of Essex.
Professor Anthony King said: “When he was a student here, he was very right-wing, pretty stroppy, and very good. He was an outstanding student, who richly deserved the first-class degree that he got.”
Professor Michael Freeman added: “He was the kind of student it is difficult to forget. John’s politics at that time were far removed both from my own and from those of most of his classmates. But he was very bright. I think he annoyed some of his classmates with his controversial views, a little over-confidently expressed, but, as his class teacher, I appreciated the way he livened up classes. Classes with John Bercow were never boring.”
Mr Bercow has few friends on the Tory benches, after a slow drift to the left throughout his political career raised fears he may defect to Labour.
The theory among Tory backbenchers is that Labour swung around Mr Bercow in a last effort to embarrass David Cameron in his seemingly unstoppable campaign to become prime minister.
It certainly appears that once Margaret Beckett dropped out from the race last night, her votes went en masse to Mr Bercow.
