The New Speaker

I am sorry to bore my overseas reader about British politics, but today was the election by the members of parliament of a new speaker. As my British reader will know and I will remind the overseas reader, unless you have both fallen asleep, the the old Speaker was forced out over the expenses scandal. Presumably because he did not save them from making all these inflated and false claims. As the house of commons still works on eighteenth century rules, I can only guess that was why they wanted him out. It couldn't be that he was just plain incompetent?

Anyway, this morning there were headlines saying that the Labour party, the governing party were trying to do a “stitch up” where a former minister would be elected. Now personally I could not see that happening, and I being sarcastic here, not with that candidate. But I suspect that is what has happened with the person who has been elected.

While in many respects who becomes speaker is a real side issue, the fact that John Bercow was reviled to have changed the designation of his second home to avoid capital gains tax on a three hundred thousand pound gain, shows that he is just untrustworthy as the rest of them.