Surely now, more than ever, is the time for an “instinctive, admired Solomon to bring ‘order!’ to our frayed assembly”, says Quentin Letts in the Daily Mail.
Instead, Tory MP John Bercow, a “shameless sycophant” with a “personality as undercooked as a two-minute egg” is likely to be elected Speaker of the Commons on Monday. His shortcomings are recognised by many MPs, but he’ll win because Labourites want to irritate David Cameron. “Such is the appalling lack of principle and statesmanship in the current Commons”.
Bercow is loathed by the Tories not so much for his “ideological flipping” (he has swung from the far-right Monday Club to the Labour Party, despite retaining the Tory whip), but for the “way that he has sucked up to the enemy for years”, says Benedict Brogan in The Daily Telegraph. He’s seen as a “greaser” whose efforts to win the Speakership have been “blatantly partisan”.
The Tories should calm down, says Steve Richards in The Independent. Speakers are impartial; candidates apply for the job because they’re “happy to leave battles to others”.
What MPs should be asking is “which candidate will speak up most effectively and personify change for the Commons, at a point when Britain’s anti-politics culture is rabid”?
Only Bercow has neither been a minister, nor a previous candidate for Speaker. He is also one of the younger reforming candidates and he has wanted the job for years –- and that’s why MPs should elect him.
Please no, says Ann Treneman in The Times. At least half of the ten MPs who want to be Speaker are so dull they should avoid opening their mouths. But the “bumptious little” Bercow is the “most irritating”.
All is not lost, says Brogan. There is talk among the Tories of using their probable majority in the next Parliament to reverse the result. As another potential Tory candidate, Richard Shepherd points out, this “dead parliament walking” is not fit to take the decision.
The next Speaker “will have a duty to ignore convention and submit himself to re-election by a new purged House after a dissolution”. That would mean Bercow could face a fight for re-election in less than a year.