Commons Speaker John Bercow is alleged to have called Tory Leader of the Commons Andrea Leadsom a ‘stupid woman‘ and ‘f***ing useless‘. There is a significant Tory faction that would like to see Bercow replaced as Speaker by someone less inclined to rebuke and curtail their rancid and often thuggish behaviour in the Chamber, so there is a perceptible effort to talk up the outrage at Bercow’s remarks.
Bercow’s use of ‘woman’ might be sexist, depending on context, but it’s not necessarily easy to argue with his other points. Ms Leadsom, the target of the alleged comments, has not exactly impressed with her intelligence or competence.
Last summer, Ms Leadsom was the subject of much amusement when, while speaking in the Chamber, she called Jane Austen – who had died two centuries before – one of ‘our greatest living authors’:
The error resulted in a well-earned social media trolling by bookshop Waterstones:
When challenged about the government’s Brexit incompetence and the state of the country under shambolic Tory government, she complained that broadcasters weren’t being ‘patriotic’ enough – clearly happy to conflate patriotism with unquestioning acceptance of Tory performance and a determination to ignore the obvious:
When the Tories were challenged, during last year’s General Election campaign, on their woeful record on air quality and the cost in health and lives, Ms Leadsom ran for cover – cancelling an appearance on the BBC to debate the issue:
And those are just the aspects of her performance that the SKWAWKBOX has specifically covered.
Of course, Andrea Leadsom’s performance and track record, on the campaign trail and elsewhere, pales next to that of her party’s leader. But we don’t have Speaker Bercow’s thoughts on Theresa May, so we’ll just leave this here.
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I used to think Bercow was entirely siding with Tories but he is pretty fair so perhaps he could apologize and replace ‘stupid’ for ‘ignorant’.
Shame on you, bercow…
…Loathsome’s WORSE than ‘f**king useless’ just like the rest of them.
Q.E.D, baby, Q.E.D. 🙂
Bercow – you are the one person in the commons who consistently gets my vote for your command of the louts who call themselves politicians, particularly the Tories. Following their example just say sorry and it should all be expected to be forgiven.
Highly intelligent and insiteful man.An excellent judge of people and their character.
Well observed Mr Speaker you are quite correct IMHO and on all counts too ,,,, but then again that description could be applied to nearly all Tories and certainly to everyone of em in this Govt!!
Insightful yes. Recognises one who inhabits the realms of the cerebrally challenged. Leadsom is only there to appease Brexiters.
Of course the fact that Bercow has just embarrassed the Tory front bench again has nothing whatsoever to do with this latest attack.
https://parliamentlive.tv/event/index/1d08fe7b-691b-4b41-81a2-18d56e2185e2?in=12:52:32&out=12:56:39
“This is an undesirable state of affairs, and if it were to happen on further occasions, a great many honorable and right honorable members, not to mention interested parties in the opposition day debates outside the chamber, would view it, frankly, as an abuse. I hope that that message is heard loudly and clearly on the government frontbench, at the highest level, by the people in particular by whom it needs to be heard.”
Hahaha! Nice one, Steve!
grayling pwned A-GAIN 😀
Also aimed very squarely at Andrea Leadsom, as Leader of the House she is directly responsible for the timetabling in The House
grayling was also leader of the house…
“Bercow’s use of ‘woman’ might be sexist ”
Well, he’d best reproach hammond, johnson, gove, grayling, dummkopf-schmitt et al for their being f***ing criminally inept – just for balance, you understand? 🙂
Hmmn. We are all human, and a friend of mine stood for Council for Labour in May in my city. He usually runs the campaign, writes and puts out 4 excellent really political leaflets in the election which people are now used to, and he has won for 10 years with 3,500 to 4,000 votes. But this year a new agent was imposed on him, they put out 2 leaflets and focused on a survey (which 3 out of 1,000 responded to) – he won with 2,000 votes!
I am searching for adjectives.
Totally with Bercow here and on other issues…
If Bercow is reported, is it a valid defence that she is in actual fact a stupid woman?
This afternoon John Bercow ‘apologised’.
https://parliamentlive.tv/event/index/f95d0a42-7fc9-465b-a65c-9e6febd7f472?in=16:44:40&out=16:46:53