Thursday, February 03, 2011

 

Tabloidisation of the House?

The picture on the left is of Sally Bercow, wife of Mr Speaker Bercow, and it's part of a longer story to be published in the Standard magazine tomorrow. She will probably reveal even more bedroom secrets than she does in today's paper. Given the fact that Bercow was so unpopular in his own party that it took Labour votes to elect him last year, this is unlikely to assist harmony in the House.

Recall the reaction of Mark Pritchard, Deputy chair of the 1922 Committee, when Bercow ordered him to stand to on one side as they passed in a corridor: 'You're not fucking royalty!'. Bercow hating Tory MPs will be spluttering into the G and Ts over the weekend I predict.

Considering that Mr Speaker would almost certainly have opposed his wife's risque revelations about their revelations let alone her state of undress in the picture- and they certainly subvert the dignity of the House- I wonder what the current atmosphere chez Speaker is? Does Sally want a career in the media? Does Mr Speaker want a career in the media? Mayb this is the first signs that politics is no longer merely 'showbiz for ugly people' as Jan Leno once quipped, but the tabloidisation of the House. Maybe it will come to attract a much higher proportion of people who are merely after fame and celebrity. Do hope not.

Comments:
This smacks of a Machiavellian plan by the Labour Party to help bring the Tories down....how farsighted of them!
Perhaps a return to traditional qualities in speakers would be useful? That they should be elected from elder statesmen/women (far less likely to have younger spouses who might look good in a bedsheet)and maybe less into the cult of celebrity at all costs? Reminds me of the Hamiltons......
 
The election of Bercow,(an immodest man of extremely modest abilities) by a Labour block vote was calculated to spite the Cons rather than to provide the House with a Speaker of ability and probity & has been seen by the public for the sleazy gesture it was. Labour's insult in imposing this narrow partisan Speaker on the HoC will not be forgotten - even outside the Westminster Bubble.

Now for goodness sake, someone else comment - I'd hate to be seen to be having the last word....
 
Well, I rather doubt Sally has quite had the last word on this. Today she said she had only been having a 'bit of fun' and that she now regretted the whole thing. Not half as much as hubby regrets it you can be sure.
 
The more I read of Mrs Bercow's sayings and doings, the more I am reminded of the pub in Mrs Wilson's Diaries - The Scilly Cow.
 
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