My new political muse

[angrychair]

This guy is force! Absolutely cut to the chase and no nonsense and I admit I love his voice and cutting responses to MPs and others. Very fun to watch.

Link to tweet

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[Gothmog]

1. My muse is the baby cannon

Link to tweet

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[Denzil_DC]

2. He can do much more than bellow "Order!"

Here he is demolishing a Tory who challenged him on a procedural point a couple of days ago:

Link to tweet

Sarah Mackie @lumi_1984

Oooooft.

Bercow: 'I have no intention of taking lectures on doing right by Parliament from people who have been conspicuous in denial of, and sometimes contempt for it...and I will not be pushed around by agents of the executive branch'

Full version:

I have no intention of taking lectures on doing right by Parliament from people who have been conspicuous in denial of, and sometimes contempt, for it. I will stand up for the rights of the House of Commons, and I will not be pushed around by agents of the executive branch. They can be as rude as they like, they can be as intimidating as they like, they can spread as much misinformation as they like, it won't make the slightest bit of difference to my continuing and absolute determination to serve the House of Commons. And unlike some people in important positions, who of course are elected constituency members but have not been elected to their offices here, I have been elected, re-elected, re-elected and re-elected as Speaker to do the right thing by the House of Commons. That's what I have done, that's what I am doing, and that's what I will go on doing. That is so crystal-clear that I feel sure it will satisfy the honorable gentleman.

[angrychair]

3. Excellent!

Thank you for sharing...perfect.

[Denzil_DC]

4. He puts up with a vast amount of nonsense on a daily basis, especially from the Tories,

who have no shame in behaving like a pack of baying hooligans in the House. It's a toxic and broken forum for government, and its shortcomings have only become more glaringly apparent in the last few years, so he has to come on strong.

I don't share Bercow's politics, but I'm very glad he's Speaker at the moment.

[angrychair]

6. Admittedly I no little about his politics

But you have to respect that level of swagger and political acumen on handling representatives

[Denzil_DC]

8. As Celerity says in the reply below, he ended up on the left of the Tory Party

before being elected Speaker by members of the House of Commons.

The HoC Speaker is an odd role. It's supposed to alternate between members of the two major parties, though there are no term limits, which is what Bercow means when he refers to being re-elected repeatedly by the MPs in each Parliament.

Speakers are MPs, but by convention other parties usually don't run against them in their seats, though Bercow's faced challenges from UKIP, a Green and an independent in the last two general elections.

He takes his constitutional role seriously, hasn't always got things right, but has grown in stature (and as a hate figure among the Tories) since the Brexit vote, not least because May and her cronies have done so much in the way of stripping Parliament of its traditional oversight role and grasping unprecedentedly wide-ranging powers.

[Celerity]

5. he is an interesting person

He started out as a hard right Tory MP, but gradually drifted to the left. In 2007, before he decided to run for the Speaker of the House of Commons, there were rumours he was going to defect to Labour.


Here is his coat of arms

[angrychair]

7. Makes me like him more

If we ever met He and I might not agree on everything but we obviously have some common ground.

Thank you for sharing the coat of arms info, really interesting!

[monmouth4]

9. Wouldn't it be neat for someone from Congress (Nancy?) to invite him to give a little talk/speech to

Congress, a friendly chat, if you will. It would be fun and I'm sure his opinions would be welcomed from strictly a friendly pov. It would also shore up our "special relationship" with Great Britain and just plainly be fun. Thoughts?

[angrychair]

10. Yes, that would be excellent. n/t