‘War on Bercow’ continues as Tories keep count that Speaker John Bercow 'ticks off twice as many Tories as Labour MPs', Order Order Order!

Dear All

Michael Martin was a former Labour MP who was voted in to be the Speaker of the House of Commons.

It was a disastrous appointment.

Quentin Letts dubbed him ‘Gorbals Mick’ and the name stuck as Michael Martin became the ‘shop steward’ of the House rather than the Speaker.

He saw himself as a guardian of keeping secret MPs expenses and we all know how that ended.

Badly!

Martin resigned, the first Speaker to do so in about 300 years, he left office in disgrace and was wrongly in my opinion given a peerage.

The Queen did it on the quiet.

Martin sits in the House of Lords.

Labour having lost face set in motion a series of events as they saw the writing on the wall.

What would be the worst thing for the Tories who were so pro active in kicking Martin out?

Step forward John Bercow.

It was Labour’s FU.

Bercow wasn’t wanted by the Tories and got in by way of Labour votes.

Tories and Bercow never made it up.

So, we have a situation where Commons Speaker John Bercow it is claimed lashes out at Tory MPs more than twice as often as he rebukes their Labour counterparts.

Unofficially there is a Tory campaign against him rumbling along, full of hate and anger.

It has a certain pettiness in it as Rob Wilson, the parliamentary private secretary to Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt has taken the extraordinary step of counting the number of times Mr Bercow shouted ‘order’ at MPs since the general election in May 2010.

His findings show that Conservative members were admonished 257 times compared with just 109 times for Labour MPs.

Tory MPs have seized on the statistics as proof that Bercow is biased in favour of Labour.

Education Secretary Michael Gove tops the chart and earned the most admonishments, 18 from the Speaker.

Simon Burns, the Health Minister who called Mr Bercow a ‘stupid, sanctimonious dwarf’, has also been ticked off ten times.

Burns later apologised to dwarves.

Mr Wilson, the MP for Reading East, said: ‘Those MPs who have suggested bias in the Speaker’s handling of the Commons would feel vindicated by these figures.’

A spokesman for the Speaker said:

“To suggest any personal bias on his behalf is nonsense.”

The Tories are bringing the House of Commons into disrepute and David Cameron of ‘second chances’ fame has allowed this to continue.

As a Party leader he should have stamped out this problem a long time ago but he let it fester that Tory MPs feel they have a sacred right to put the boot into Bercow.

Bercow’s wife Sally is also an MP, she hasn’t distinguished herself either with her crass picture of her in a sheet demeaning the office of the Speaker.

With lead flying in the phone hacking scandal, the hard core Tory anti Bercow brigade still find time to run their hate campaign at Westminster.

Commons Speaker Joihn Bercow, few friends, many enemies.

Yours sincerely

George Laird
The Campaign for Human Rights at Glasgow University