Just back from the splendour of Speaker’s House state rooms where I’ve been interviewing John Bercow.
It’s a bit like a doge’s palace in there. Speaker Bercow will be living in the less stately but pretty nice private accommodation upstairs, with his young family. There will have to be a few adaptations to the property.
He was avoiding taking any pot shots at the Tory MPs who’ve been abusing him for years and who last night moved into a new gear of fury and expletives.
You get a strong sense that John Bercow thinks a lot of it is not just because his political sympathies moved leftwards but because his social origins were not to their liking.
He insists that he was “not milking the system,” even though his second home allowance expense claims were consistently nudging the top limit.
He says he didn’t feel he’d wrongly claimed the money he paid back but that the mood of the times made it a good idea to pay it back.
I asked why so many of his claims seemed to be “rounded up” – he said it was covering real costs and money that had been spent in performing his duties.
I asked him if he would allow Harriet Harman to make her statement in the Commons this afternoon given that some of it appeared to be in the Daily Mail this morning… I got the impression the statement would be going ahead as normal.
Much of John Bercow’s rhetoric about being the candidate of change relates to asserting the backbenchers’ power and giving the Speakership a new, younger look and feel.
On expenses, I should add, he is saying he will not claim the second home allowance any more. Will the public feel he is a break with the past and represents real change?
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This ‘new’, ‘Round-’em-up’ Speaker will no doubt seek ways round any new expenses rules. His new accomodation requiring adaptations may be a good one for milking the system! I’m sure he’ll round up any figures.
If MPs were payed in vouchers, redeemable only at indepenent stores, I’m sure the 650 MPs would soon dwindle.
The job of the speaker is to keep order and, to remain impartial. (I feel that 2 Speakers, one of who should be female, would have been better. A live heated debate would be very entertaining!)
Let’s hope this Speaker has no infuence at the expenses office.
As for the public feeling he is a break with the past. Who are you kidding!
It’ll only be actions and 100% transparency that’ll do. These are the words MPs & Fat-Cats hate!
The new speaker of the house of parliament will no doubt spend a considerable amount of time revising the rules governing the member’s expense accounts in order to avoid future corruption cases. The next London Olympics offers a unique opportunity to kill two birds with one stone.
At the end of the games the athletes accommodation should be converted into two, three and four bedroom flats (see Barcelona 1992) and given free of charge to all members of parliament who need a second home in London. Then when their term expires or they are not reelected they would have 3 months grace to vacate the premises.
The advantages to doing this are obvious both from the tax payer’s point of view and for the members of Parliament. That is unless the latter have not entered into politics for the good of their constituency but to feather their nest with real estate speculation in the style of Tony Blair.
That is good news, the Speaker Bercow (residence) will have some reforms….
~Dennis Junior~
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