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NADINE DORRIES: Bercow is an oily opportunist lacking loyalty and courage... and I speak as a Tory

By NADINE DORRIES, CONSERVATIVE MP FOR MID BEDFORDSHIRE
Last updated at 12:04 AM on 21st June 2009

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'Victim of false claims': Nadine Dorries

Tomorrow, the House of Commons is to elect a new Speaker. It is one of the most important days in modern Parliamentary history and comes at a time when MPs are in a state of shocked paralysis. 

I admit to being among them. As an MP who has been the victim of false claims concerning my expenses, I arrived home on Wednesday to find my patio totally vandalised. 

I have never claimed for gardening, food, a second home for ducks or anything else, yet a newspaper mixed serious matters with error and lies and whipped up opinion to a point where it is becoming dangerous.

Speaker Martin has already gone, the public hate us and, with an election just a year away, we need to restore our reputation.

The first step to achieving this is to elect a Speaker who can unite MPs from all sides to quickly drive through reform. He or she must be trusted by MPs and the public alike. And I’m afraid to say that person is definitely not my Tory colleagueJohn Bercow, the MP for Buckingham.

It says much for the esteem – or lack of it – with which John is held by his fellow Tory MPs that only two have declared their support for him. This alone should disqualify John from entering the race to be Speaker.

Former Labour Minister Frank Field would have made a first-rate Speaker, but ducked out mainly because he realised he could not get enough backing from his own party. 

Many Conservatives would like to see John follow Frank’s honourable course.
It’s not that I dislike John the man. However, I do take exception to John the MP. 

There is almost nothing he does I approve of. There is a strong view among Conservatives that John came within a whisker of ‘crossing the floor’ and joining Labour when Gordon Brown became PM.

People in a better position than me to know what was going on say that John considered defecting at the same time as another Tory, Quentin Davies. John denied it, but I vividly recall his reaction when Quentin took his seat with Labour for the first time.

The comments on our benches were unforgiving. John looked shocked and the thought occurred to me: ‘You are wondering if this is what they will say about you when you move over, aren’t you?’

Bercow has 'coveted the role of Speaker for years and wooed Labour for its vote'

Ironically, my belief that he was going to defect is not what concerns me most. No, it’s the fact that due to reasons of personal opportunism, he bottled it. I have no time for men with no political courage.

Above all, the Speaker has to remain strictly impartial and I question whether John can do this.

It is well known he is prone to move from one zealous extreme to the other. He is often described as ‘being on a political journey’. To qualify for the role of Speaker, I think you need to have arrived. 

In the recent debate over an attempt by some MPs, including me, to reduce the upper limit at which abortion can take place, he called us ‘antediluvian’.

He is entitled to disagree with my opinion, but should a prospective Speaker conduct himself like that? This name-calling is a problem of John’s which is commented on by almost all MPs. If you dare to disagree with his point of view, he becomes angry and personal.

He makes petty criticisms of Conservative MPs’ use of grammar when they speak, while heaping obsequious praise on Labour MPs. This is pure opportunism. He has coveted the role of Speaker for years and has wooed Labour for its vote.

Tories can reel off a list of reasons why John would be a disaster as Speaker. It includes his oily behaviour towards the Government, his lack of loyalty to his own party and the way he petulantly stormed out of two front-bench jobs. 

His mystifying journey from the far Right to the Left after his marriage to a Labour activist begs the question of stability, as does his lack of almost a single friend on the Tory benches.

If MPs elect a Speaker who is mistrusted by up to half of the House, he will be powerless to carry out the reforms needed to clean up Westminster. 

Moreover, the media and the public will be unrelenting in their scorn. And they will be right to react in this way.