By Vivienne Russell
24 June 2009
New Speaker John Bercow ‘could go seriously off the rails’, veteran political commentator Matthew Parris told the CIPFA conference.
In yesterday’s guest lecture, delivered the day after the Conservative MP was elected as the new Speaker of the House of Commons, Parris said Bercow was ‘on probation’ and would face some significant challenges in his first months.
Bercow, who – although a Tory – is not well liked by his party colleagues, might struggle to assert his authority against a newly elected and buoyant Conservative government.
‘All governments bully all Speakers,’ Parris told delegates. ‘John Bercow will encounter the same sort of difficulties. How he reacts to that, whether he reacts with the necessary determination and diplomacy [will be the test]. I’m not sure he will.’
Parris speculated that the Conservative leadership could well allow rumours to circulate that they will try and unseat Bercow once they are in power, which could unsettle the new Speaker.
‘The Speaker should never feel that he’s on trial or on probation,’ he said.
It was a lecture peppered with Parris’s trademark witty anecdotes and humorous insights. He shared with delegates an intriguing vision of how the next few months could pan out politically, and suggested a general election could take place as early as October.
Prime Minister Gordon Brown might use his autumn conference speech to announce his resignation, paving the way for a new Labour party leader whose tenure will not be associated with the recession, Parris said.
Such a speech, if delivered well, could bring ‘cheers and tears’ from the party faithful and a ‘wave of relief, expectation and affection’, he added.
The new prime minister, once in place, would call an election for late October, leaving Brown to move on to a big job in international finance.
However, when asked who could step into Brown’s shoes, he said there was no obvious candidate, although Home Secretary Alan Johnson could go some way to mitigate Labour’s losses at the election and could prove a ‘good campaigner’ if not a good prime minister.
Parris could give little comfort to his public sector audience, saying the future was ‘going to be grim’.
He added a Conservative government would either top-slice all departmental budgets by 10% to 15% or conduct a root-and-branch review of what it is government does and where cuts could be made or charges for services introduced.
‘The intelligent way to face the economic crunch is to face the root-and-branch questions,’ he said.
Parris, himself a former Tory MP, also ventured a defence of those MPs caught out by the expenses scandal. The unpleasant publicity had ‘descended disproportionately on Labour backbenchers and ministers’. He said he did venture some understanding of their plight. ‘They are feeling really sore and bruised.’
But he said the government should have anticipated the brewing controversy over MPs’ expenses and not dragged its feet on Freedom of Information requests. ‘The government’s obstinacy had been completely counterproductive,’ he said.
