The Nose Have It: Bercow Digs For Britain - channeling Gordon Brown perhaps?

http://order-order.com/2015/10/28/the-nose-have-it-bercow-digs-for-britain/

Speaker John Bercow is dropping in esteem by the day

John Bercow is not popular with many Conservative MPs and there are good reasons for this, his election as Speaker was a fix as obvious as the World cup going to Russia. However the open mickey taking is quite extraordinary; first there was the 'If you're not happy which dwaf are you?' remark and now I read at Politics Home that the Speaker is being compared with Stewie (the odd baby) from Family Guy...

John Bercow taking a line he never took when Gordon Brown was Prime Minister and David Cameron leader of the opposition

Yesterday's PMQs were an eye opener for me. For several years Speaker Bercow allowed Gordon Brown to avoid answering questions from David Cameron and to ask questions of him instead. So this exchange came as a surprise (not really):

'The Prime Minister: For some people, two weeks is too long. That is the whole point. If a target contributes to good clinical outcomes, it stays; if it does not, it goes.

Now let the right hon. and learned Lady answer a question. Is it your policy- [Interruption.] I know that the right hon. and learned Lady is not involved in the leadership election, which basically involves sucking up to the trade unions, but she is capable of answering a question. Is it Labour policy to cut the NHS?

Mr Speaker: Order. I hope that the right hon. and learned Lady will confine herself-as I know she will want to do-to her role, which is not to answer questions but to ask them.

Ms Harman: Thank you, Mr Speaker, and the Prime Minister has still not answered.'

The BBC were joyously reporting the Speaker's intervention this morning. So why did Speaker Bercow decide to take a stand this morning having never stopped Gordon Brown from asking questions previously, I think his mantra was along the lines of 'the Prime Minister can answer questions in the manner he see fit'. The Conservatives should have got rid of John Bercow as Speaker at the start of this session of Parliament, he will be a thorn in their side for some time now and of course when he finally retires, it will be 'the turn' of another Labour MP.

Speaker Bercow - Bumptious little oik isn't he?

News is spreading that Speaker Bercow may be challenged today and I am all for that. The Speaker is meant to be a non-partisan position and up until Michael Martin's tenure it was. Michael Martin was a Labour Speaker, installed by a Labour party at the height of its powers in 1997 that decided not to back a Conservative candidate, as tradition would dictate, but instead install a loyal Labour MP. With Michael Martin's political demise Labour realised that another Labour MP as Speaker might be a step too far, so instead voted in as Speaker a Conservative MP who received no votes from his own party.

Whilst I agree that Menzies Campbell has the gravitas to be Speaker I am not sure how impartial he would be, he has some worrying links to the old Gordon Brown Labour party in Scotland. My vote, if I had one, would be for Sir Alan Haselhurst, he's been an excellent Deputy Speaker and would be a pretty non-controversial choice.

The John Bercow no 'nays' post

A Tangled Web wonders if there was a 'stitch-up' in the House of Commons yesterday:

'Just finished watching the latest stitch-up in what is rapidly becoming a worse Parliament than the one operating in Zimbabwe.

The place was the House of Commons, and the occasion was the election of a new Speaker. Sir Peter Tapsell, now the Father of the House allegedly for his long-standing service, but actually because he has never taken a hard decision in his life, asked the Question of the Members present if they wished to re-elect John Bercow as the Speaker.

He asked for 'Ayes', and a large number of voices called "Aye".

He then asked for 'Nay,s', but and this is where the stitch-up happened; despite a definite number of voices calling out "Nay", because I heard them, he proceeded to announce that 'the Ayes have it, the Ayes have it'. John Bercow is therefore the new Speaker of the House of Commons.'

I am disgusted that John Bercow is till the Speaker and I think that David Cameron will regret his lack of balls over this issue today. But then David Cameron has shown little sign of balls so far, I am not impressed.

Has Speaker Bercow crossed a line?

Paul Waugh thinks that many Conservative MPs think he might have done and are discussing what action to take. Read The Standard article for the specifics, here's the conclusion:

"Some Tories tell me that the private discussions about unseating the Speaker are now becoming matters of open debate in the Tea Room.

"It's a question of when, not if, he is challenged," one says. "I don't wake up wanting to pick a fight with Mr Speaker. But I wonder whether he wakes up in the morning and wonders which Tory MP he wants to pick a fight with."

...

UPDATE: Tory backbenchers are going to the whips tonight to express their displeasure with the Speaker. I hear that one of the delegation is also to go directly to David Cameron himself."

PMQs 3 March 2010

With Gordon 'fearty' Brown occupied elsewhere it fell to Harriet Harman to answer at PMQs today and she was woeful, possibly the worst performance by a stand-in that I can remember - yes that does include John Prescott. She had some pre-prepared lines about Lord Ashcroft and she was just too eager to use them. Speaker Bercow told her off twice for raising matters that were not pertinent to PMQs and she called William Hague the Foreign Secretary and couldn't laugh off the error, and that's the trouble with Brown and Harman compared with Tony Blair, he had a sense of humour and could laugh at himself (in public anyway) whilst Brown and Harman are without humour or the skill of self-deprecation.

When William Hague asked about policy Harriet Harman floundered badly, it seems that she doesn't understand the difference between UK Government bonds and the exchange rate, doesn't realise that PMQs are about areas of Government responsibility and seems incapable of answering a straight question.

It was good to hear that William Hague followed, at least in part, my suggested line of questioning.


It strikes me that maybe Gordon Brown misses so many PMQs just so his party get to see how poor the best elected alternative to him is, so as to keep them sticking with the devil they know.

It also strikes me that the BBC must realise how bad Harriet Harman's performance at PMQs was as they have taken down any references to today's PMQs from the politics area of their news website.

Has John Bercow's got the begging bowl out and is it legitimate?

Anna Raccoon has an excellent scoop:

"Before the General Election has even kicked off, Buckingham Candidate John Bercow stands accused this afternoon of misusing the Office of Speaker in order to further his electoral cause.

In an election contest that is becoming increasingly tight, Bercow has put together a group of supporters called The Friends of Speaker Bercow. Nothing wrong with that: but the approach they’re using is, to say the least, dubious.

Letters requesting monetary support have been sent out to wealthy potential patrons….with a hard sell follow-up by phone. I have seen and been given a copy of this letter.

“His people are doing very hard-sell telephone follow-ups to the letter,” one recipient told me, “and they’re stressing that the request comes with the knowledge and approval of the Speaker’s Office”.

This was confirmed by a senior local Tory Party member, who felt that asking for ‘political’ funds (while playing up the Speaker’s Office angle) represented double standards."

Do read the whole article and let's see if it gets picked up by the Main Stream Media; somehow I doubt it as the BBC for one couldn't bear to see Nigel Farage beat a CINO (Conservative In Name Only) like Bercow.

Sunday catchup

Some stories that I read this week and think you should too:

1. An Oxfordshire Geek calls Gordon Brown "Cynical. Loathsome. Detestable. Vile. Despicable. Disgraceful. Nauseating. Abhorrent. Reprehensible." Not a controversial view but it saves me writing about tonight's Piers Morgan/Gordon Brown pre-election love-in.


2. Anna Racoon takes Speaker Bercow to task for his lack of control over PMQs:

"Prime Minister’s Question time has long been a farce, though farce implies something mildly amusing. The past few weeks it has turned into an elongated election broadcast on behalf of the Labour Party and it is anything but amusing.

Every question is turned into an monologue deriding the Conservative party, and the speaker never intervenes to demand an answer from the Prime Minister.

Yesterday there were 10 ‘planted’ questions from Labour MPs, not holding the government to account, but giving the Prime Minister the opportunity to extol the virtues of the Labour party. 3 questions from Conservative MPs, never answered, 3 from Lib-Dems, equally never answered, and 1 from a welsh windbag – Elfred Lewis."

Anna Racoon has a suggestion as to how David Cameron should draw attention to the farce that is PMQs and (in my view harness some of the righteous anger that many have against Gordon Brown and the unpleasant people that support him):

"I long to see Cameron call the Blind Man’s bluff – to ask a serious question, and the moment he is treated to a monologue on the supposed short comings of the Conservative party by way of response, to lead his entire party out of the House of Commons and hold a press conference on the steps of St. Stephens instead.

Provoke a constitutional crisis. Defy the media not to report Cyclops’ wilful refusal to be held to account. Defy Clegg not to follow suit and support him. Kick Bercow out of the Conservative party. Disown him."

3. The Cynical Tendency has an interesting article, but I am not sure what he is talking about!


4. The Sun reports on the Unions who are recruiting for the coming war with a Conservative government:

"UNION chiefs preparing for a battle over public spending cuts have launched a £500,000 RECRUITMENT drive.

Unison are offering salaries of up to £40,000 for at least 15 local and regional organisers to "build the strength" of the public service union."

5. Conservative Home reveal that:

"the unions are holding back money from Labour's election fighting fund and instead choosing to build up a war chest with which to fight the Conservative government that they expect to be elected next year. The relatively benign economic years of the recent past have meant the unions have not had to fund much strike pay and the coffers of the public sector unions, in particular, are overflowing.

A very good source tells ConHome that the unions have as much as £25m to spend on campaigns to oppose cuts in the public sector workforce and in public sector pay."

6. Coincidentally The Telegraph report that:

"David Cameron will move to scrap the automatic union funding of the Labour party if he wins the general election... Currently, unions only need to ask members every 10 years if they want to contribute to their political funds, which also includes spending on campaigning and lobbying.

Around £8million a year is channelled through the political funds to Labour party coffers in this way.

Under the Tory plans, union members would have to choose to contribute to the political fund every time they pay their annual subscription.

Asking individual union members to tick a box supporting Labour every year was a key sticking point in talks to reform party funding which collapsed amid acrimony two years ago.

Mr Cameron has pointed out that many union members are not Labour supporters and yet are often unwilling contributors to the party."

Here's to 2010 (part 2)

Further to my earlier post, here's a few more.

Ten other predictions for 2010:
1. An Islamic jihadist attack will succeed and hundreds will die but still 'the West' will not acknowledge the reality of the threat
2. Iran will test a nuclear device and the UN will still pretend that they pose no threat to Israel or anyone else
3. The Man Made Climate Change religion will increase its hold on the western world's politics and the 'warmists' will make holding 'deniers' views even more difficult
4. Microsoft will release Office 2010 to replace Office 2007 but most businesses will still stick with Office 2003
5. Nigel Farage will beat John Bercow to take his Buckingham seat
6. Matt Smith's portrayal of The Doctor will not match up to David Tennant's
7. The Big Brother team will engineer a 'controversy' for the final series, I won't care
8. England will not win the World Cup
9. Andy Murray will not win the Wimbledon title
10. NotaSheep will continue to blog


Happy New Year...

Is John Bercow running scared of Nigel Farage?

I read Iain Dale's interview with John Bercow the other day and neglected to post about this extract:

"You are facing a challenge at the next election. Isn't this convention that the Speaker isn't challenged a fundamentally undemocratic one?

I don't think it is fundamentally undemocratic because it isn't a rule, it's not a law. It is a convention and I think that you have to look at what the alternative would be. If you said, well, party candidates from the main parties will stand, it will be quite difficult to get anybody to stand for the role of Speaker. It would be very difficult to have more than a one-term Speaker because obviously a lot of people do vote, even now with declining party loyalties, on the basis of party allegiance. If we chose to reconfigure the Speakership in the way that it operates in many other countries - where the Speaker does vote in all normal votes, not just where there's a tie as here, and does campaign for a party - that would be a different situation. But I don't sense any enthusiasm on the part of the House to do that.

The second point is that now and again - I'll try and deal with it up front - it is suggested perhaps what should be done is that the Speaker should be given a separate constituency, usually known as St Stephen's, which represents a small area around Westminster, and that the local constituency he or she is taken from should be able to hold a normal party election. The House of Commons can always decide to do that if it wants. My attitude is that, as such a decision would affect me directly, it's not right for me to be either an advocate of it or resistant to it. The only thing I would say is I do enjoy having constituents and believe that I'm still well and truly able effectively to represent the people of my constituency. I do just want to underline the fact that it is both possible and it would be necessary for the Speaker to continue to be a highly active constituency MP, but I won't face, I suspect, major party competition, but I will face opponents."

Is John Bercow preparing the way for him to be able to opt out of facing Nigel Farage, an opponent who might well win the seat? A nice little rotten seat would no doubt suit our rotten Speaker.

Birds of a feather flock together?

The Mail claims that:

"The wife of Commons Speaker John Bercow was sacked from a leading City firm after it claimed she had lied about having a degree from Oxford University.

Sally Bercow was dismissed by public relations business Consolidated Communications after it contacted the Oxford authorities and discovered they had not granted her a degree.

The company accused her of having lied on her CV. It also claimed that Mrs Bercow - who at the time was known by her maiden name, Sally Illman - had used 'multiple CVs' with different 'facts' about her past on each one."

Of course Mrs Speaker has an explanation...:

"Mrs Bercow, 39, last night denied lying. She admitted she had referred to an 'upper second' in theology at Oxford on her CV. But she claimed this was her first-year exam result and was not intended to conceal the fact that she had left Keble College after two years after falling behind with her studies and rowing with her tutors."

When People saw the photos of Mr & Mrs Bercow last week; one tall and attractive, one a less than attractive pipsqueak, I heard "what on earth does she see in him; now we know that they are kindred spirits...

Split loyalties?

I read in Paul Waugh's column that

"Speaker Bercow's wife Sally was last night selected as one of the three Labour candidates for Westminster council."

More ammunition for those who used to call John Bercow a CINO - Conservative In Name Only. Are John Bercow's political antenna that badly attuned that he cannot see how this will look? I wonder if an incoming Conservative government might insist on a new Speaker as they don't want a Conservative one and so vote in a Labour one - Frank Field?

John Bercow shows some balls

I hear that Speaker John Bercow has said that Lord Mandelson, the First Secretary of State, and head of an enormous Whitehall "Empire" should be subjected to regular public interrogations from MPs. Quite right too, not that he ever gives a straight answer to a straight question...

Another reason to vote Farage

The sight of John Bercow pretending to reluctantly take The Speaker's chair made me feel quite nauseous as it was clear to many observers of the political scene that he had been after the position of Speaker for quite some time. So it was with no great shock that I read on Lobby Dog that

"Lobbydog got a sniff of the full extent of his machinations earlier today when he was talking with defeated Speaker candidate Margaret Beckett.

She revealed that while she was canvassing support for her campaign MPs told her they’d been approached by Bercow for their backing up to three years earlier.

It seems he had been gathering names, possibly as early as 2006, and was waiting for the opportunity.

Between 2006 and 2009 came the years that Bercow was also active in working with the Labour Government, leading to defection rumours but boosting his cross-party credentials."

So I call upon all Conservative voters to get out and vote for Nigel Farage at the General Election so the new House of Commons can have a Speaker that represents it, not the discredited old Chamber. Bercow, Bercow, Bercow; out, out out!

Stop spending our money!

The BBC report that:

"House of Commons Speaker John Bercow has appointed a former Times journalist as his special adviser and spokesman.

Tim Hames, who is currently a director of communications for a lobby group, was chosen without anyone else being interviewed for the post.

It is thought to be the first time a Speaker has taken on someone with the job title of special adviser.

Mr Hames will start work on 2 November and is expected to spend about a third of his time dealing with the media.

He will be a special adviser on a Grade 1 status, meaning he will get a salary of between £87,000 and £107,000 a year. "

I presume that John Bercow (ex CINO MP) is not paying Tim Hames from his post tax income and so I resent this addition to the public purse. The Speaker should get on with being The Speaker, he has clerks to advise him on Parliamentary business, he does not need any other advisers. This should be another nail in the coffin of John Bercow's career as an MP as I am sure Nigel Farage will skilfully use it at the coming general election.

Someone worth voting for is to stand against "Speaker" Bercow

John Bercow is to face proper opposition at the next general election as UKIP leader Nigel Farage will announce tomorrow that he will stand against him at the general election.

The UKIP announcement runs thus:

"UKIP Leader Nigel Farage is to challenge House of Commons Speaker John Bercow for his Buckingham seat at the General Election.

Mr Farage will formally announce his intention at the UKIP annual conference tomorrow.... Mr Farage said: "This man represents all that is wrong with British politics today."

As John Bercow is a CINO (Conservative In Name Only), I expect a lot of Conservative votes to flow to Nigel Farage. I am not sure if that will be enough to dethrone John Bercow, but I hope so.

After the next election the Speaker of the House of Commons needs to be a trusted, respected person, and one acceptable to the new House not the current one. So if John Bercow is defeated by Nigel Farage that means that a new Speaker would be elected. If however John Bercow is re-elected then I believe many MPs will, quite rightly, call a vote of no confidence in him.

It's not your money, it's ours!

Speaker Bercow is showing that he has as much idea about the feelings of the people who pay his salaries as his predecessor. Admittedly Michael Martin spent £724,600 on refurbishing the residence between 2000 and early 2008, plus a further £992,000 on the garden and improved security, whilst John Bercow has only ordered redecorations costing £20,659.36, but that is so far. The Telegraph reports that:

"£3,600 has been spent on fitting locks to the windows and having workmen check that access ducts in the wall panelling are lockable or childproof. A further £3,880 has been spent on planters to provide additional child safety on the terrace. One of the two studies is to become a playroom, with £1,087 spent on redecorating it. The note suggests putting washable paint over existing paper. For the drawing room, a £6,764.30 sofa suite has been ordered, together with window seat cushions costing £760. In the kitchen, a new large clock is being provided at a cost of £80, together with a noticeboard and blackboard, costing £86.73, a hob guard at £47.88 and an additional high-level pulley clothes airer. The utility room is being remodelled at a cost of £497 in order to provide more hanging space. The floor in the room, and in the bathroom, is being replaced. A double bed is being bought from Ikea for the housekeeper’s apartment for £479. It is understood that a further £20,000 has been allocated to cover general maintenance."

The new chief trougher, or rather a spokesman justified the expense with the inevitable "will nobody think of the children?" type statement:

"The Speaker believes that these are reasonable costs and they reflect the fact that he has a young family to accommodate. He believes people can see that it is not extravagance and that the money has been spent wisely, for example the bed that he has brought in is from Ikea".

In fact what it really shows is that he can be frugal but only where his family housekeeper is concerned.

The part of the report that really pissed me off though is when John Bercow is reported to have

"told Commons staff that he will personally pay for other items such as a children’s Wendy house that will go on the terrace, and a climbing frame for Speaker’s Green, adjacent to the apartment."

I'm sorry, of course he should pay for those items, he's not doing the taxpayer a favour by paying for them. Has he still not got it? His children are his, not ours. We will, reluctantly, pay for essentials but Wendy houses and climbing frames are not essentials. Mind you neither are large clocks, window seat cushions etc. etc. etc. What does he think his huge salary is for? Does he think that his salary is all to go into savings whilst the taxpayer pays for all his living expenses?

I did also enjoy(!) this piece of self-justification:

"While the new Speaker’s spending is certain to attract criticism, he will argue he has spent far less than his predecessor, Mr Martin, and point out that the changes had to be made because of his children."

"He has spent far less than his predecessor"; is that a valid excuse? First, Bercow has only be in position a few months, so give him time. Second is he promising that this will be the end of the expenditure? Third would a murdering doctor get off because he has killed less people than Dr Harold Shipman? As for the children explanation; maybe that was another reason to elect Ann Widecombe rather than John Bercow.

I do hope that the rumours of a credible candidate being prepared to stand against John Bercow come the next general election are true. I wonder if I can move my vote from my current constituency to Buckingham as I actually think I would enjoy seeing John Bercow unseated almost more than my current Labour MP.

"It is high time the house was run by professionals on a transparent basis, ensuring that we are accountable to the people who put us here."

Those were some of the words used by John Bercow during his campaign to become Speaker of the House of Commons. So it was with interest that I learnt this week of two facts that seem to be diametrically opposed to this statement. First was the news that John Bercow's office has refused to reveal how much he is getting paid. Apparently it would breach parliamentary "protocol" to say whether he had stuck to the wage freeze agreed by his predecessor, Michael Martin. An FOI request should sort this query out but this sort of petty secrecy does not bode well for transparency on other matters. The second story is that moves are afoot to for the Independent Parliamentary Standards Committee to draw up rules forcing sketchwriters to forego “offensive behaviour and language”; in other words censorship.

Westminster Whispers on the Speaker's friends and more