Speaker John Bercow’s critics ‘bitter about their own failure’

Published on 15/08/2012 00:15

THE Speaker of the House of Commons has accused his critics of being “embittered and resentful” about failings in their own political careers.

In an outspoken interview, John Bercow said many of those who had tried to prevent him becoming Speaker in 2009 were still “sulking” three years later.

He also hit out at sections of the media that had attacked him and his wife, Sally Bercow. He called them “totally low-grade, sub-standard, downmarket, low music-hall drivel”.

Mr Bercow has divided opinion in Westminster with his frequent interventions in Prime Minister’s Questions and his regular requirements for ministers to appear before MPs to face urgent questions on issues of the day.

“There are people who say, ‘he’s so puffed up with his own importance’, and people who never wanted me to win in the first place and in many cases strove very hard to stop me winning have tended to feel a lingering sense of grievance,” he said.

“Sometimes people who haven’t perhaps achieved what they wanted to achieve in their political career can display some sign of resentment.”

Much of the hostility against Mr Bercow, formerly a Conservative MP, has come from among the Tory benches, as when he required Prime Minister David Cameron to appear in the Commons in April to answer questions about Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt.

He rejected any suggestion that the move was motivated by bias, insisting the matter “needed to be urgently aired in parliament”.

He said Mr Cameron had never voiced any objection to him about being called.

“The Prime Minister’s job is to captain his team, his party and his government. My job is to serve as Speaker of the House of Commons.”

The Speaker said he was 
“supremely uninterested” in much of what was written in newspapers.