Yesterday, Commons Speaker John Bercow made an ‘apology’ in the House for calling – with justification – Andrea Leadsom’s decision to use a ministerial statement to erode time for Labour’s Grenfell Tower debate ‘stupid’ – or, as he put it, making a ‘muttered aside‘.
It was an object lesson in making an ‘apology’ that nobody could raise a complaint about while highlighting the character and competence of the government:
“Anyone who knows the Leader of the House at all well will have not the slightest doubt about her political ability and her personal character” is world-class parliamentary ‘shade’ so good that it is almost on a par with Dennis Skinner’s famous ‘withdrawal’ of an insult to half of the Tories on the other side of the House by saying that half were not crooks.
Bercow gave not an inch to the pathetic, cowardly and disrespectful tactics the government routinely resorts to in order to escape accountability for its failures and cruelties.
Well done to him for that.
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Damned by Faint Praise
I still maintain that grayling – as a former leader of the house – had his hand in the Govt business for that day….He’s the current transport sec and it was transport business that took over.
So tear HIM a new one, bercow. Even if grayling wasn’t in any way responsible, just do it for shits & giggles all the same 🙂
I am beginning to like Bercow more & more
He is outspoken, does not seem to suffer fools gladly.
Mr Speaker is getting more cool day by day!
Love him or loath him you can’t question his candor, When he was elected as speaker many of his Tory colleagues at the time voted for other candidates, probably because they knew he had more integrity than the rest of them put together.
The Tories have been wanting rid of bercow as speaker for some time now. They think we’re dumb.