John Bercow’s name doesn’t usually top the Christmas card list of Conservative MPs. At best, it’s acknowledged that his working relations with colleagues have sometimes run less than smoothly. At worst, his popularity ratings in the tea room hover marginally lower than the Pope’s at Ibrox Park (a location he seems to have visited at least once – the Speaker, that is, not the Pope).
He’s seen to have been elected by Labour MPs. His progress to the Chair, like his expense claims, won few plaudits. He seems to have alienated a number of hacks, a lot of bloggers and, for whatever reason, one or two sketchwriters. He faces a tricky election campaign in Buckingham. Triumph at the polls may not end his troubles. Speculation persists that a revolt from the green benches will oust him in the next Parliament (though, for what it’s worth, I think that such an event is, on the whole, unlikely.)
Against this less than promising background, it’s worth studying closely his speech yesterday to the Hansard Society, of which Jonathan Isaby’s reported the main proposals. Three points emerge.
First, almost everything suggested is worth considering. The proposal to allow the Commons to elect its Deputy Speakers, however attractive at first glance, is an exception: the risk of Labour MPs repeating their behaviour during the Speakership election should surely have crossed the mind of the present incumbent. But most of the rest of the speech is sensible, and focused on one aim: “We need the backbencher to move from the Parliamentary version of the stalls to the centre stage”.
Second, this main theme of the speech – Up with independent-minded MPs; Down with the System - is completely in tune with the public mood. It’s true that Bercow, whose oratorical manner has occasionally made Lord Randolph Churchill look like Vicky Pollard, is in some ways an unlikely spokesman for the zeitgeist. But in substance rather than style he’s more than halfway there. Voters are unlikely to contest his contention that, for example, European legislation needs more scrutiny rather than less, or that the Commons should sit in September.
Third, there’s much more where this came from. The speech didn’t cover the Commons seizing timetabling powers from the Government - by means of a backbencher-run Business Committee - or giving Select Committees more powers to make Ministers sweat. But Bercow hinted at both moves (which were part both of his manifesto and those of other candidates), praised Ken Clarke’s Democracy Taskforce, took a side-sweep in the direction of some former colleagues (which won’t have passed unnoticed) and concluded roughly as follows: “The Office of Speaker can now, I hope, be an advocate of and a catalyst for change.”
In a slickly-penned turn of phrase, Bercow’s manifesto proclaimed that he’d be a Listener as well as a Speaker. This speech was a reminder – with the Kelly report, the Legg enquiry, more expenses details and an election approaching – that this Speaker will be a Player and not an Observer. This is more or less as it should be. The Commons hasn’t been well led in the recent past: indeed, it hasn’t, arguably, been led at all. The Speaker claimed yesterday that he’d made a good start by speeding up oral questions and granting more urgent questions – thus putting Ministers on the spot. Both assertions were justified.
It will doubtless be argued that the office which Bercow holds should shield him from vulgar journalism, especially from fellow MPs. Not so. These are new times, and if the Speaker’s to lead from the front he must expect comments from behind – especially, perhaps, from those who’ve known him for many years, and who didn’t vote for him. For what it’s worth, I fall into both categories. This doesn’t stop me concluding that since election his chances of emerging as the backbenchers’ champion and a reforming Speaker have improved.
