UK: Speaker of the House
Don't let the terminology confuse you. The House of Commons has a speaker too.‘Order! Order!’: Parliament Speaker Is Brexit’s Surprise Star and Villain
In the wretched purgatory that was Westminster last week, there was precisely one person who seemed to be having fun.
From the silk-canopied speaker’s chair of the House of Commons, John Bercow looked out over Britain’s squabbling Parliament and brayed, “Order! Order!” in that undrownoutable voice, something like an air-raid siren with postnasal drip…
The outside world rarely takes much notice of the speaker of the House of Commons, a nonpartisan and typically low-profile figure who presides over parliamentary debates. But Britain’s last-minute paralysis over exiting the European Union, or Brexit, has made Mr. Bercow into a kind of celebrity.
With less than 10 weeks left before the country is set to leave the bloc, he has broken precedent by wresting some control over the Brexit decision-making from Prime Minister Theresa May…
It is an extraordinary moment for Mr. Bercow, the 56-year-old son of a cabdriver from North London. An outsider sometimes mocked for his short stature (he is 5 foot 6½), he propelled himself through the Oxbridge-educated upper reaches of British society by sheer determination and is viewed, variously, as a sharp-elbowed bully and a champion of the rights of Parliament…
The speaker heading toward Commons
Even in the hyper-loquacious environment of British politics, Mr. Bercow stands out for his love of ornate language and withering insult.
“He could never say, ‘It’s great to see you’ ”; instead he would say, ‘It gives me inestimable pleasure to meet you for the finest condiments created by Mrs. Twinings,’ ” a colleague told Mr. Friedman, his biographer…
Mr. Bercow has made a career out of annoying his conservative colleagues. Some are still seething over his decision not to wear the traditional speaker’s regalia, including wig and knee-breeches, which he said created “a barrier between Parliament and the public.” …
But nothing has approached the fury that followed his decision to allow lawmakers to amend a business motion — effectively curbing the government’s powers….
Crispin Blunt, a lawmaker from the conservative Tory party, protested that Mr. Bercow could no longer claim to be a neutral arbiter on the issue of Brexit and should step down…
Ian Dunt, a political commentator who opposes Brexit, said the government has sidelined Parliament throughout the process, claiming that the referendum had provided the executive with a more direct form of sovereignty…
He compared this moment to 1642, when King Charles strode into the House of Commons and demanded that five lawmakers be arrested for treason. The speaker at the time, William Lenthall, refused his orders, telling the king in a famous speech that he acted solely on behalf of the House of Commons…
His precociousness and small stature did not ingratiate him to schoolyard bullies. Mr. Friedman said they threw him into a pond, laughing and saying, “Bercow can be in there with the other amphibians.” In university, “we’d quote Monty Python and he’d quote” the 19th-century Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli, Andrew Crosbie, a fellow Tory activist, told Mr. Friedman.
He found his tribe in politics, a profession where his verbosity was an asset…
The events of the last week have won him praise from unusual quarters. The Times of London, calling him “hardly a sympathetic individual,” wrote approvingly of his actions, saying the government’s treatment of Parliament “has appeared drawn from the 17th century, frequently invoking the will of the people, much as the early Stuarts used to assert the divine right of kings.”…
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Labels: parliament, parties, political culture, UK
posted by Ken Wedding @ 5:30 AM
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