Unspeakable by John Bercow

Author:John Bercow
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781474616652
Publisher: Orion

7

Ambassador and Diplomat

The impartiality of the Speaker is fundamental to the integrity of the office. But the fact that I had to be impartial between the political parties did not mean I had to be impartial about Parliament itself – far from it. Throughout my campaign I had emphasised that I envisaged a role for the Speaker as a kind of ambassador for Parliament: engaging with people from all walks of life to explain what the role was, how Parliament worked and why it mattered.

As some of the stories from the previous chapter suggest, the House of Commons is a small ‘c’ conservative institution. Most members and staff value its traditions and are, to varying degrees, cautious about, even resistant to, change. That said, I was surprised by two reactions to my ‘ambassador’ idea. A fellow candidate for the Chair, Sir Patrick (now Lord) Cormack, expressed strong disapproval. If I ‘took to the public square’, as he put it, ‘doubtless opining’ on matters of great political controversy, his judgement, borne of his almost forty years’ service as a Member of Parliament, was that the consequences for ‘Parleeament’ – his inimitable pronunciation of the word always tickled me – would be ‘profoundly injurious’. I begged to differ.

The second instance of opposition came when the Conservative MP for Mid-Sussex, Nicholas Soames, came up to me in the Chair. He and I had not been friends. We were very different and had often clashed. On this occasion, he was both extremely gracious and unusually hesitant. He told me that he had not voted for me to be Speaker – I did not need to be Sherlock Holmes to work that out – but had voted for Sir George Young Bt, whom he regarded as ‘a bloody good egg’. That said, he generously told me he thought I had made ‘a jolly good start’ as Speaker, but asked if he may be so bold as to make a point.

‘Please do,’ I replied.

‘Well, Mr Speaker,’ he proceeded, ‘I am bound to say that this outreach business of yours I don’t understand. I don’t get it. It’s a rum business.’ For those readers unfamiliar with the works of P. G. Wodehouse, ‘rum’ is not just an alcoholic drink but can also mean ‘rather strange’. Why, I asked, did he think it strange? Apparently Soames thought it ‘beneath the dignity of the office’, and felt I should not be ‘trudging across the land, speaking to school students, to universities or to Women’s Institute branches, gathering in draughty village halls. If people want to hear you they should bloody well come to the House of Commons.’ I replied by thanking him for his candour but saying that I thought his view was anachronistic. In the modern world, an age of pervasive cynicism about politics and politicians, it was not good enough for people holding public office simply to look important and expect to be revered. I felt I had to make a case, to talk to, engage with and hear from the public who paid my salary.

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