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It really didn’t take too long did it ? Bercow’s election promise that he would “rebuke ministers” if they made announcements outside the House was crap or a downright lie. It is quite funny just how quickly Bercow has failed in the Speaker’s job and settled into Labour business as usual.

Lord Adonis announced a rail nationalisation of the East Coast route on the Today programme, 12 hours before the House was to hear an official announcement. Then there was Ed Balls on federating schools and Alan Johnson’s ID cards back-off – both announced first in the media and not before the House.

The Clown Does the Same…

Just to finish things off and clearly demonstrate that incompetence did not depart with Mick Martin, Bercow announces to the BBC first and they run the story three quarters of an hour before he makes the announcement to the House that he is going to sack his deputy speakers, currently two Tories and one Labour and then hold elections for three new ones.

But very oddly he has decided that they shall be two from the government side and one from the opposition which means no Tory will get elected. Labour will vote for Labour and then Labour will vote with the Libdems to get one of theirs elected. It rather looks like Bercow is giving his supporters pay back for his getting the job which really takes away even more “dignity” from the House and further damages the role of Speaker as now no more than a lackey of the Government .

A Child of His Times

The problem with Bercow was obvious before the Speaker election and indeed before he put himself forward for the job, he is clearly someone “on the make” and the second “mistake in a row” for this post.

In a sense it is not really his fault, his political journey from the right to the left came under successive Labour controlled Parliaments the hallmark of which has always been a sense of “entitlement”, Bercow is a creature of his times.

Given the prevailing circumstances, a temporary Speaker should have been installed and the incumbent acknowledged that was positively the case, which would have shown that even a Labour Parliament can learn its lessons but, they didn’t.

Whilst it is true that the Speaker must be re-elected at the start of a new Parliament and as hopefully Labour will be left with fewer than 200 seats, Bercow is probably betting on Cameron having far too many other pressing things to deal with to bother with him but, I hope he’s wrong and Dave boots him out of Office.

A Tory Parliament

It is not a matter that Bercow has been bought and sold himself to other ‘interests’ and the old boys network in the House, it is that with the next Parliament likely having a 50 percent turnover of MPs, they should have the right to elect their own Speaker. Hopefully there will be a substantial (though not too substantial), Tory majority and one hopes that they will learn from these Labour Parliaments and not vote in a partisan fashion and instead chose the right person.

As a footnote under such circumstances, with a Tory majority, the two best candidates might put themselves forward, Field and Cable and in either case we shall at last have a decent Speaker of the House capable of the job.