Bobby Friedman, an accomplished television journalist, has produced an engaging portrait of John Bercow. It opens with an encounter at the urinal between David Cameron and an unnamed Labour MP just before the election of the new House of Commons Speaker in 2009. “I’m about to vote Conservative for the first time in my life”, the MP told the Tory Party leader. Cameron is said to have replied: “John Bercow doesn’t count.”
Bercow’s election was greeted with huge applause in the House. The problem was it came from the Labour Government benches; Bercow’s colleagues sat in stony-faced silence. The recurring theme of this study is that no matter which wing of the Conservative Party Bercow inhabited – and he famously moved from extreme right to left – he remained an outsider.
His abrasiveness first exhibited itself at primary school. Arguing in defence of Enoch Powell and his Rivers of Blood speech was unlikely to endear him to the many pupils from Asian backgrounds who attended his school. He subsequently became a luminary on the Immigration and Repatriation Committee of the Monday Club and was described as “more right-wing than Marie Antoinette”. Burning issues included repeal of the Race Relations Act and a programme for the voluntary repatriation of immigrants. That Bercow’s own grandfather hailed from Romania does not appear to have caused any consternation.
It was his activities in the Federation of Conservative Students in the mid 1980s that first brought him to national attention. FCS members wore Hang Nelson Mandela T-shirts, called for the legalisation of heroin, the abolition of the laws against incest and the privatisation of all roads and universities in Britain. Its leaders included one William Beggs who, in 2001, was convicted of the murder and mutilation of an 18-year-old man whose head and limbs were discovered at different locations throughout Scotland.
Had Tony Blair been Prime Minister at the time, he would have had the FCS proscribed as a terrorist organisation. Tory chairman John Gummer, in what was probably his single most significant achievement in his parliamentary career, suspended funding for the FCS. Norman Tebbit, Bercow’s guru, shut it down for good.Bercow’s first attempt at securing a seat came when he stood for the unwinnable – and viscerally anti-Thatcherite – constituency of Motherwell South in 1987.
Friedman informs us that the victor’s speech passed without incident. But then what passed as relatively peaceful co-existence between the parties was “dramatically shattered” when Bercow took the opportunity to point out that Margaret Thatcher was heading for total victory and began extolling her virtues. The agitated crowd started booing and then, understandably, unable to contain themselves, began throwing chairs at Bercow. One witness informed the author: “John wasn’t fazed at all. He just took it in his stride, they had to rip the mic from him.”
A further set back took place following his appointment as special advisor to Jonathan Aitken, the newly appointed Chief Secretary to the Treasury. After The Guardian’s revelation of Aitken’s sordid connections with Saudi arms dealers, people wrongly assumed that Bercow was in some way responsible for his master’s infamously absurd “sword of truth” speech. Bercow lost his job.Having secured the nomination for Buckingham, Bercow coasted to victory in May 1997, winning half the vote in this safe Conservative seat.
An endless barracking of Government MPs and his use of arcane language marked his early years in the Commons. Not many others were heard coining phrases such as “I couldn’t give a tinker’s cuss for the European Court of Human Rights”.Friedman attributes the influence of Michael Portillo to the subduing of Bercow’s radical right-wing views. He famously criticised his own party for appearing “hostile” to black and Asian voters. Praise came from the unlikeliest of quarters during the June 2001 election. His opponent in Buckingham, a former editor of this weekly, Mark Seddon, described Bercow as a good person to run against, debating fairly and without any animosity.
He was certainly an industrious MP. The author’s research has revealed that Bercow posed an astonishing 10 per cent of all questions by MPs in 2001. He became a prominent champion of gay rights, abstaining in a three-line whip on gay adoption. Friedman says a furious Norman Tebbit consequently refused to attend Bercow’s wedding and Iain Duncan Smith sacked him.Bercow retaliated by pointing out that, under IDS, the Tories had as much chance of winning the next general election as “finding an Eskimo in the desert”.
Appreciating that his prospects of frontbench politics had dimmed, he immersed himself in international human rights activities that took him to Zimbabwe, Sudan and Burma. I should add he positioned himself against the dictators in power. He infuriated the right by complimenting Tony Blair for his “outstanding statesmanship” and later tore into the new Conservative leader by spelling out the obvious: “In the modern world, the combination of Eton, hunting, shooting, and lunch at White’s is not helpful when you are trying to appeal to millions of ordinary people.” An aide to the future Prime Minister informed the author that it was unusual for Cameron to hate anyone so much.Friedman observes that the nadir in terms of his reputation among Tories was reached when he agreed to work for Gordon Brown and Ed Balls as an advisor on a review of services available to children with special needs. The “son of Tebbit” had morphed into the “son-in-law of Gordon Brown”.
Conservatives remain sore at his election as Speaker. Many would have preferred Margaret Beckett. The author lists tiresome Tory complaints about a supposed pro-Labour bias in Bercow’s surprisingly efficient and disciplined running of the Commons. His colourful wife Sally – of “George Osborne is mental” fame – appears to have replaced Cherie Booth as their primary hate figure. I have to say, despite his eccentric baggage, Bercow certainly looked the part as he accompanied the American President into the Palace of Westminster on his recent state visit. This book is well worth a read – and a good chuckle.
