John Bercow is the Speaker-Elect of the House of Commons

Jim Manning

Bring back Speaker Martin!
Never thought I'd say that!

William Blakes Ghost

Arise King Trough! It's a freakin' disgrace! Parliament has just delved deeper into the sewers below London.

adrian drummond

Very disappointing.

Alf Tupper C.R.O.F.

I'm so glad that's overed with. There's only so much excitement I can take in one day.

Minnie Ovens

Straight from their success upon expenses, Westminster reprise their contempt for society by appointing a man up to his neck in the trough.
I am ashamed to be British.
More to the point I would like to apologize to all who have fought, and died, in wars for Britain.
You gave your all for a better world.
This lot have just soiled your graves.

Simon Stephenson

Right. Cameron should announce immediately that the first thing he will do as Prime Minister, if elected, is to make the Speakership extra-House of Commons. A truly independent Speaker, perhaps elected, perhaps appointed by the Queen, or the Privy Council, but someone who is in control of the Commons, not a stooge of the majority party.

It has the potential to gain a million votes for the first party to announce it.

Does he have the courage to do it? Probably not. It's a bit unorthodox for our Dave, I expect.

dilys

I\'ve just read his wikipedia entry and he seems ok to me and being as I don't get a choice who cares anyway?

Julianlzb87

At least he stopped Beckett
getting another go in the trough.

TGF UKIP

Assuming Buckingham Constituency Tory Party haven't the balls to de-select the slimey sod, Buckingham might be a very good place for a celebrity anti-sleaze candidate to stand.

The Press tomorrow is going to be very interesting, especially the Browngraph and the Mail.

Billy Goat Gruff

A Rangers supporter to balance the dear departed Celtic one.

Tiberius

Bercow may be Jewish, but let's hope he's not also a Pharisee.

CH

They really don't get it do they?

Dirty Euro

Yippie Well done Bercow. He seems an OK guy to me. He is a not a racist bully two faced bully. He seems to care about people, and has dynamism.

Susan Hill

Oh I despair. The man NOBODY wanted but voted in out of spite. And Harman, who is turning into as big a liar as Brown, saying there had been absolutely no pressure from Labour for anyone, all aove board, secret ballot, may best man win blah blah lying blah..
I bet Martin is thinking 'beware of what you wish for...'

Michael

I suspect that were quite a few Tories who voted for John Bercow. Now DC has to rally the troops and support the Speaker as the Speaker has now to rally and support the whole HoP and prove his worth to his detractors including the posters on this blog. Democracy means supporting the people you did not vote for. Lets be positive at the beginning of a new start. DC has made a good start. Lets be generous.

Olaf

I want a floating duck house
I want to clear my moat
I need to mend my tennis court
That’s why I need your vote.

I have to build a portico
My swimming pool needs mending
My lovely plants need horse manure
And the Aga needs much tending

A chandelier is vital
Mock Tudor boards are great
My hanging baskets won awards
And I’ve earned a tax rebate.

I need a glitter toilet seat.
My piano so needs tuning
Maltesers help me stay awake
And my orchard must need pruning

I could have said the rules were wrong
And often thought I should,
But somehow it was easier
To profit all I could

The public really have to see
That the rules are there to test
And by defrauding taxpayers
We were just doing our best

The Speaker of the House has gone,
Our sacrificial beast,
But the public are still braying
For our corpses at the feast

What do the public want from us,
Those vote-wielding ingrates?
They really should be grateful
To be financing our estates.

The message is so very clear,
(we’re merely learning late)
That the British way of living well
Is to screw the bloody state.

MikeF

The Speaker should be someone who has earned the respect of the House through long and meritorious service. Bercow can claim none of that. This is the parliamentary Labour Party blowing a raspberry at the country as they head for the exit door from power and maybe even from relevance.

Paul

I am a bit worried about Bercow. I was worried already that he was so obviously Labour's man (I know that there has to be a degree of cross party agreement about the appointment, but this is altogether something different). Then Kilfoyle got up in the house and told Bercow that he shouldn't forget the backbenchers who put him into office.

The inference was that Bercow was now expected by an element in the house to pay them back for handing him his privaliage (sorry, can't spell).

It could have been meant innocently. Kilfoyle could have meant that Bercow should now give more power to the inner workings of Parliament against the Executive, but the aghast noise made by some members of the house in response indicated that they thought that it was a very innappropriate thing to say. Indeed, Kilfoyle, did sound like a theratening gangster.

This, combined with Bercows apparent opinion that the house was not corrupt, just made me a bit concerned.

Roger Thornhill

CH, they do get it. In their attempt to spit in the eye of Cameron, Labour casts grit in ours.

Robert Vincent

Even today inverted snobbery still seems alive and well.

Simon Stephenson

No chance, I suppose, that Bercow is a deep plant by the Conservatives - spending years sucking up to Labour to create the idea in their mind that they can really p1ss off the Tories in this way, only for Bercow to reclaim his true colours when it's all too late for Labour to turn back?

Or have I been reading too many spy stories?

Gawain

He's dynamic alright. In exactly the same way as all those smarmy, two faced, bonus munching, New Labour voting bankers. Very appropriate that on the day that RBS decide that Mr. Hester is worth £ 9.6 million that Parliament should appoint this jumped up little glove puppet. He'll be a consumate media tart and a complete disaster. Just like all the Labour fiddlers who voted for him.

Oor Wullie

Billy Goat Gruff
He's Jewish, but is he a Protestant jew or a Catholic Jew? (old Glasgow/Belfast joke).

CJH

I agree with Simon Stephenson.

It truly is awful when an MP who flipped homes is now our Speaker, with the 'mandate' to reform the system.

Too much politics in his election.

Simon Denis

When the Nazis retreated from occupied Europe, they left a tangled skein of vicious booby traps in their wake. Labour - with the spite we have come to expect of the left - has left not so much a booby trap as a booby, who will do nothing to elevate the reputation of parliament. He is a weak personality, endlessly in quest of approval and clearly a pawn of that blundering machiavel, Brown. Cameron need say nothing now, but some plan to replace this plainly deficient little man should be hatched without fail.

JB

"Arise King Trough!"

Bercow was the 13th cheapest politician (out of 645) in 2008/09. He didn't make conspicuous apologies for MPs troughing, like George Young. I fail to see why he is apparently so disliked, other than his current views are less right-wing than they were. If we're choosing the speaker on idealogical grounds, surely a left-leaning tory or a right-leaning labour MP is right. I suspect the Conservative party is just taking its ball home.

R

This is most pathetic. At a time like this the MPs appear to have elected a speaker as a kind of party political prank.

Susan Hill

Dirty Euro. Your operative word there is 'seems.'

Alf Tupper C.R.O.F.

Dirty Euro

Off thread somewhat but: surely a central characteristic of racists is that they do very much care about people. Just not all of them.

David

An enigmatic man indeed! And supported by the Labour Party!
Westminster is on another planet!

mart

Intelligent, capable of independent thought. Not overly partisan. Seems a good choice to me. Why so much complaining, anyhow?

hadrian

The only person truly up to this high calling was Frank Field; that he felt constrained to withdraw is a sad sad commentary on the nigh terminal condition of our nation.

JohnOfEnfield

Bercow does not appear to be a man of the great personal integrity that we need. I think it is a sad day where the lowest of the low politics by Labour taint our parliament.

Suki

Ghastly little man.

I hope Frank Field will be elected Speaker after the election.

Seb

Good result - put party affiliations to one side and they elected the reformer!

tlh

Right CH: "They really don't get it do they?"

In other words - "there's none so blind..."; or so deaf. Not to mention dumb!

Porky O'Swine, Westminster

WE got what we wanted so we don't give a damn what you think.
Who do you commoners think you are? Do you think this will stop?
All you silly proletariat will moan and whine for awhile and then forget the whole thing.
You think I'm joking?
Well, we promised you a referendum and didn't give it to you so if you don't care about democracy enough to make a fuss then who cares what you think.
At the end of this I get a dirty great pension so what do I care.

donald fraser

Bercow is a good choice and restores the authority of parliament. David Cameron now has less than 12 months to put some meat on his policies. Failing this, as was always the case, insufficient vote will be won up North.

Cameron has a reputation for being Internet savvy. If he and his team's digerati status is more than window dressing, now is the time to knuckle down to some hard online Web 2.0. But this is the UK, not America. In our little corner, Web 2.0 must entail advocating bold and new government policies to release new synergies and make us internationally competitive. Unlike Obama, David does not have the charm to win by spreading website fans widgets in a viral spasm.

Without further evidence of a change from the Tories, Labour deserves to win. Many of the rank-and-file still continue to put great effort into promoting the digital cultural industries. Tory grandees still mainly champion property, oil and finance. The Tory dislike for Bercow, with his disarming charm, is because his star threatens to expose "our emperor new clothes" for what they are. Cameron urgently requires a new policy wardrobe. This is a world economic crisis and we need leaders who can deliver in detail a rescue agenda.

If not it would be better to hold out for a proper Conservative government in 5 or 6 years time, than vote for one without a plan. Don't be fooled the world crisis will be over by Christmas! It will probably linger on until around 2015. Not so bizarre if considering the previous length between 1929 and 1937/8! So Bercow is an essential addition to the authority of the commons. He is the right man to help the electorate make the right decision. Cameron needs to do some soul searching and come down from his mountain with his digital tablet to show the people.

Fergus Pickering

He seems to care about people! God give me strength where did you dredge that one up from? Who exactly among the candidates was a racist, two-faced bully? Further, if Bercow is indeed a practising Jew (is he?) that would make him racist by definition, would it not? He seems a puffed-up little bag of wind to me. A chap like that would be a boon to the Labour Party. Can't think what he's doing among our lot.

Lee Jakeman

I told my Jewish colleague that Bercow had won and he groaned and said "what have we done to deserve this?"

When I asked "by WE do you mean WE THE BRITISH or WE THE JEWS?".

He groaned again and said "BOTH".

Lee Jakeman

First we had "Gorbals Mick".

Now we've got "Little Berc".

Scot Richards

The only real question is will he have the backbone to force Brown to answer questions as he is required? If so then we can live with him. If not then he'll be the shortest-lived speaker in history.

Petethespark

Labour Catholics have just voted in a proud Rangers supporter and a keen singer of the anti-catholic song the 'Sach'

Hope somebody can dredge up a copy of it, must now be worth something.

Politics really is weird at the moment.

john miller

I am beginning to think that if you looked at every piece of legislation, every act of this "government", over the last 12 years, its main purpose has been anti-Tory.

Labour enjoyed the Major years so much, as the spinning, sniping, smearing party, that they never recovered when elected and have remained in Opposition.

The abolition of the 10p rate of tax so that Brown could bring down the basic rate was perhaps the prime example. He abandoned all (he said) he stood for in exchange for the orgasmic feeling from watching Tory faces when he announced it.

The election of Bercow is a variation on this theme. It was not done for the good of the House, it was not done for the benefit of MPs as a whole, it was done because it annoyed the Tories.

A sad, sad era of British political history will hopefully draw to a close in 2010. Let us hope after that date, anger, envy and bitterness will not be the prime reasons for governance.

ken from glos

Not only did he flip houses he dodged Capital Gains Tax which we mere mortals have to pay !!

Paul B

We have an adversial system of politics, and thats thats. He won a fair vote. No point bleating about or trying to change the goalpost now. As to the Monarch or any other body deciding on the next Speaker, what a joke. We are ruled by an elected House of Commons, thats slams the door in the face of the Crown once a year. Long may that continue. The Crown does as it is told , not vice versa.

Flemingcrag

"Plenty of heartfelt thanks", me, I thought it was the most vomit inducing speech since Tony Blair threatened to resign if the Labour Party did not back his path to glory by waging war on a Nation without weapons of mass destruction.

This was the election of a SLUG by a herd of SLUGS. This smarmy git is everything the general public despise in politics and everything your self interested politician desires. A person who would sell his own Granny to advance in life.

The cesspool that is Westminster will display hardly a ripple as this bit of pond life is dropped in and helped to the surface to be its public face of pretensious reform.

If this piece of human flotsam is the answer to Westminster's problem, what was Gordon and Labour's concern about anything being wrong in the first place?

After all, they voted him in!!!

TrevorsDen

Bercow was elected by votes of Labour MPs

oldtimer

One rotten apple replaced by another - from what we learn about his expenses, flipping and use of tax advice at our expense.

A BBC political reporter described him this morning as "pompous" with an "irritating personality". Not a ringing endorsement.

My hope is that the voters of Buckingham have the chance of voting for an Independent candidate at the next election and turfing Bercow out of office.

Vulture

Westminster has just drawn a big, fat gob of particularly putrid slime from the back of its collective throat and spat it in the public's face. Virtue has been rejected and vice rewarded. I do hope some honest person has the integrity to stand against this loathsome reptile at the GE and win by a landslide. Sod the tradition that no-one stands against the Speaker : by tradition the Speaker is above politics. Well, last night NU Liebour put paid to all that. The smile on BallsBruin's face when their 'man' won said it all.

David Ossitt

Dirty Euro

I think you intended to write 'Yippee',as an exclamation of joy, but instead you wrote 'Yippie' a hippy who is politically active.

Please tell; which of the other candidates are 'a racist bully two faced bully'(sic) or is this just another example, of your rambling thoughtless prose.

Angela

Porky O'Swine sums it up brilliantly.

David Ossitt

donald fraser

"Bercow is a good choice and restores the authority of parliament"

How does the election of this odious little man restore authority?

"Without further evidence of a change from the Tories, Labour deserves to win"

Donald; what justifies your claim "labour deserves to win"?

Most would say; that labour should never ever hold office again.

David Ossitt

oldtimer-Vulture

Hear Hear.

Simon Stephenson

Paul B : 8.10am

So according to you, we should be happy with what we've got and we should also be happy with how we've got there.

What do you think when this process that you revere comes up with outcomes that don't suit you? Are you still as adamant that there is no benefit to be gained from doing things differently?

Ben Hopkins

Commments here from a moderate Labour background.

For me, apart from Anne Widdicombe, Bercow gave the best speech. Richard Shepherd and Parmjit Danda also made interesting points. The rest were pretty dull. His main opponent, Young, would be have been such a 'business as usual' choice that the nation would have yawned and switched off, with a slightly tired air of 'We know how this movie ends...'

Bercow also seemed to me likely to do better in television interviews than the others, which is important if (and it's a masssive 'if') the Commons is full of basically good representatives who need to rebuild their reputation. The remaining questions that spring to my mind are: Is he a careerist out for personal gain? Or someone who can balance on the greasy pole while getting on with a spot of public service now and then?

Victor, NW Kent

Can we now move on? We have had weeks of the affairs of Parliament, not Parliamentary affairs. There is still a country to be run.

Let us judge Bercow by results and not by preprejudice.

mac

The 'most sophisticated electorate in the world' seems to be the favoured epithet of some to describe the process of installing Bercow.

The microphones picked up one particular screechy harpy expressing her pleasure when the voting figures were announced last night; that wouldn't have been the 'sophisticated' yet arithmetically-challenged Ms Armstrong, ex-Chief Whip, could it? Or was it another of those many 'sophisticated' MP?

Frank P

Most of the world's historical problems are down to short-arsed men with overweening ambition devoid of principle. The tendency continues as yesterday's 'choice' of Speaker indicates. What a douchebag!

And this is the 'new start'?? We must be moving closer and closer to the Guy Fawkes solution, surely?

Frank P

Lee Jakeman

LOL. A gem - love it! Should travel well too.

Jeremy

I think it's very sad.

I doubt very much that this vain and egocentric gnome - accompanied, as always, by his self-satisfied grin - will ever be able to command the respect of the House, let alone that of the nation. A little man (in every sense of the term) in a big job. And yet further evidence of the ongoing decline in the quality of our politicians and the standard of our political life.

Nicholas

" . . . thats slams the door in the face of the Crown once a year. Long may that continue. The Crown does as it is told , not vice versa."

That presupposes a parliament of power and integrity and a Crown whose power warrants curtailment. In the present situation however none of these apply. The government warrants its power curtailing, parliament is useless in protecting the interests of the British people but the Crown has all the integrity and sense of duty. I for one would be cheering if HM Household troops rounded up all the squalid little men and women in the the government's rubber-stamp office (HoC). It would seem like liberation.

JONNY

What's all this talk of 'has 12 months to prove himself' about?

With summer recess coming up, and Election Day almost cert for May 6th - and April Fool's Day likely for Dissolution, our smarmy new puppet Speaker has only a few months' worth of Salad Days to crow in.

b

mac - the screech of "yessss" and other horrid noises was totally cringeworthy and i would love to know who it was so that they do not get elected next time simply by virtue of behaving like a child.

Publius

I didn't want Bercow. But now he's been elected I can't see he has anything to gain by partisan sucking-up to Brown's fag-end premiership, and a good deal to gain from proving his critics wrong and being a good even-handed Speaker.

As the papers say this morning, he's on notice. With so many conventions going out the window, it won't be hard to chuck another one after it and unseat him after the GE.

Simon

So the New Labour Candidate dressed in Conservative clothing got his wish after years of greasing up to new labour and the libdems. In view of JB's 'enlightened' liberal views I fear for the unborn child in the UK.

logdon

Democracy will only live up to it's name when that unholy rabble of mindlessly partisan Labour MP's is removed from office.

Despite all that's happened during the last few months they still play the, 'let's rile the Tories' game, which must take precedence over all else.

Including the good of the country.

How they all sniggered when BBC rerun after rerun of Portillo's shocked dismay was aired, as Twigg took the vote.

To them ousting a big beast Tory had more inherent value than actually winning the seat. What has Twigg done since?

This, for me illustrates and encapsulates the sheer venal and uber aggressive negativity of this bunch.

They, and their supporters still live in an age of a phoney , Ragged Trousered Philanthropist. It’s all abstract cant and class hatred. Listen to any one of them, from the preposterous Hattersley to Woolas as they spout their dishonest and dishonourable crap.

Hypocrisy and self delusion are the defining characteristics. They talk of the working class, yet shaft them right royally at any opportunity.

That the working class is the only reason for Labour’s existence has been forgotten long since, as a cohort of money grabbing professional MP’s descended on Parliament with one aim.

To stay in office at all cost. With the spin off, of course of troughing as much as possible.

Their mentality of permanent entitlement knows no bounds and the Blair ‘political wing of the British public’ statement shamelessly points this up.

They certainly are not that preposterous claim, in fact it would seem the opposite as Britishness and in particular, Englishness is sneeringly trashed as an archaic remnant of a colonial past.

Too many examples to list, the destruction of Britain continues apace.

Bercow’s elevation is small beer, yet what a metaphor as to how Labour operates?

EC

Frank P,

The stables need a good clear out but would the Guy Fawkes solution, however pleasing, be permanent?

MPs are the fruit of the poison tree of party politics. The next crop of clones(clowns?) would be identical and equally as rotten as the last.

Surely our nation can find one outstanding individual in each constituency to stand as an independent? Then we could vote all the other buggers out.

The thought occurs to me that the 650 gifted people required might have already emigrated. Double bugger.

George Laird

Dear All

What a swansong for Labour to stick two fingers up to the Tories and the Country by their support of John Bercow as they leave government.

I hope he gets the last laugh on them by rising to the occasion and truning out to be a good speaker.

That would really annoy them.

Yours sincerely

George Laird
The Campaign for Human Rights at Glasgow University

Frank P

EC

"Double bugger!"

Don't say that too loudly: you'll break up the Cabinet Meeting as several Honourable Members fall out and rush over to take up the offer.