Advice for Bercow
by Jamie Bartlett
24/06/09
So we have a new speaker. I'd like to hear what advice people would give Mr Bercow. I found this last night while reading Bevan's "In Place of Fear". I'm not a fan of Bevan, though In Place of Fear is admittedly brilliant. It's about working class MPs arriving in Westminster, and although the analogy isn't strictly accurate, it would do Bercow good to reflect on it, as he is now its speaker:
His first impression is that he is in a church. The vaulted roofs and stained glass windows, the rows of statues of great statesmen of the past, the echoing halls, the soft footed attendants and the whispered conversation, contrast depressingly with the crowded meetings and the clang and clash of hot opinions he has just left behind in his election campaign. Here he is, a tribune of the people, coming to make his voice heard in the seats of power. Instead, it seems he is expected to worship; and the most conservative of all religions - ancestor worship.
Bercow has quite a job on his hands. Any other advice?
Jonty Olliff-Cooper
Speaker Bercow had an opportunity. In his first pronouncement Bercow should have inaugurated a truly radical era in Parliament with just two words: “I resign.”
Not as Speaker, of course; as an MP. Standing down as an MP would have been the most powerful act of authority the new Speaker could have made. For one thing, it would correct a long standing constitutional anomaly: once Mr Bercow became Speaker, his constituents might as well not have existed, because, being neutral, the Speaker cannot actively represent them.
True, this is not tradition. The present rules dictate that the Speaker must be an MP. Ignore that. We must bulldoze a path through the anachronisms of Westminster. They are not endearing. They are alienating. Resigning would signal that this Speaker will be more than just the judge between competing claimants. Mr Bercow must turn prosecutor too.
To follow, the new Speaker should revitalise parliament by allowing MPs, not Downing Street, to set Parliament's timetable, and turbo-charging Select Committees with new powers and new members rather than just-whipped flunkies, freely elected by all MPs. Next, smash secrecy, by publishing all Parliamentary business online, in full. Finally, Mr Bercow should abolish the Commons' Fees Office, ignore Brown's "OfParl" quango and instead create Citizens' Juries in every constituency, to examine – and if necessary veto – their MP's expenses. Jury service need not be onerous. Faced with proper scrutiny, I would like to see the MP who dares sneak through so much as a bathplug out of line.
This is an extract from a piece published on Comment is Free. Read Jonty’s full comment at http://tinyurl.com/nncnrq.
Jonty is the Senior Researcher at the Progressive Conservatism Project at Demos.