Skipper

So I didn't choose the winner; nothing new in that. But listening to the likes of Nadine Dorries, Tory MP, and Nick Robinson this morning, it is obvious the election has only gone part of the way to solving the Speaker problem. I knew that Bercow was not liked in his own party but Robinson used the words 'heartily loathed', which suggests a more visceral disregard. Dorries said that only three Conservative MPs voted for Bercow; they mostly sat glum-faced after the result was announced; Cameron's enconium was a damning with very faint praise, as was Alan Duncan's on Today this morning.

Rumours abound that a group of Tories are planning to remove him once they are in office after next May. It would be a pity if this plan materialised but I doubt if it will. After a few months such ideas will seem absurdly petty and if and when they win, removing Bercow will appear the least of Tory priorities. But emotions are running high because, as Dorries suggested, the Conservatives feel Labour imposed the hated Bercow on them as a last act of spite before they lose the next election.

Why do they hate him so? Firstly because thery think he has curried favour with New Labour, moving swiftly from far right to the cusp of defection, probably encouraged by his Labour activist wife; illwishers suggest he 'discovered sex and the Labour party at the same time'. 'Turncoats' are pretty always close to the bottom of popularity polls in most organisations and Bercow was seen as someone virtually in Labour's ranks already. Secondly he is seen as extraordinarily bumptious and arrogant: not pretty character traits and ones which will prove major handicaps if the perception persists in office.

Thirdly, he is known for disrespecting colleagues, for example, correcting their grammar under his breath; now that would irritate even the most equable of colleagues. I just wonder though, if there is not a fourth reason. I recall a very senior adviser to a former Tory PM telling me he was sure Leon Brittan had his career derailed partly because of residual anti-semitism in the senior ranks of the Conservative Party. Bercow, as we know, is the son of a humble Jewish taxi-driver.

But all this can disappear. All Bercow needs to do is to make a big success of his new job and this gossip will become the merest historical froth. He will have to demonstrate he is totally committed to his stated rerform agenda and deploy industrial quantities more of the charm which his hustings speech and acceptance remarks suggests he has.