In America, about three weeks ago, the stomach churning brutality of party politics was set in blindingly clear focus in front of a fascinated world, through the prism of a rich, white Republican man seeking a position on the Supreme court. In his way stood a woman who accused him of having sexually assaulted her. For speaking up, her reputation was publicly savaged.
The allegations of bullying of members of the House of Commons staff against Speaker John Bercow are hardly as captivating. The fabric of American society is not at stake, only the fabric of Prime Minister’s Questions. But that two lessons into the grim nature of party politics should have come along at once is as instructive as it is depressing.
The report into bullying in the House of Commons has been published. The House of Commons does not emerge from it well. On Tuesday afternoon, Mr Bercow had to chair a debate into its findings, which was little more than a debate about his own misconduct. It divided the house, which naturally it would. Dividing is what the house does. But it divided not down the lines of right and wrong, which scarcely got a look in, but down the lines of political self-interest, which are rarely seen as fully naked in as broader daylight as this.
Mr Bercow’s critics, and they are chiefly his own party, dislike him because they believe he uses the privilege of the speaker’s chair to tilt matters in favour of the Labour. It is his privilege to choose which urgent questions to grant, which speakers to call. It is a position that demands an absolute bipartisanship - a quality in which they find him lacking. For many this is bound up in straightforward personal animosity, too. Mr Speaker is not without his pomposity, and he also voted Remain.
Those gunning for him are well known. James Duddridge, the member for Rochford, devotes a frighteningly high percentage of his House of Commons time to the issue of who should and shouldn’t be presiding over the House of Commons. One suspects it is not a matter that animates his constituents quite as much.
But then, Mr Bercow’s political journey is a remarkable one. As a young Conservative he was a member of the Monday Club, a wing of the party so right wing that Iain Duncan Smith banned it (among their policy proposals had been the repatriation of immigrants). He had also been involved in the Federation of Conservative Students, an organisation considered too right wing by Norman Tebbit. Now he is all but an honorary member of the Labour Party, his centre left credentials never more confirmed than when he launched an extraordinary attack against Donald Trump, the President of the United States, and from the speaker’s chair.
That Mr Duddridge was on his feet to attack the speaker was no surprise. That the speaker had to listen to him, reeling off a list of the allegations against him, including but not limited to “taunting, mocking, belittling, making offensive personal comments and belittling someone’s junior status”, while the speaker looked sheepishly on was, in less serious circumstances, amusing in its way.
Later on, there was Ben Bradshaw, one of the commons’s self appointed high priests of Remain, to inform that: “We need a speaker who is prepared to stand up for backbenchers, stand up for this house, against an over mighty and over bearing executive, especially one who is seeking to drive through a brexit that is intolerable to the majority of this house”.
Jess Philips, to her credit, took an equally dim view of both sides, with finger pointed over the floor of the house and rage in her voice. “ I have spoken to hundreds of people who are the victims in this”, she said. “The neither right, nor honourable, in my view member for Rochford has probably spoken to none of them”.
Ouch.
“Some of us don’t care who is the offender”, she continued. “It is the victims that we care about. And we will not use the victims for political gain, nothing upsets them more than when we play with their feelings for political gain, so don’t do it”.
It was passionate stuff, made all the more so by John Bercow himself having to point out to her that she was not allowed to suggest Mr Duddridge was not honourable. “Everyone in this place is honourable”, he informed.
In that one sentence, so much of what counts for modern political life was distilled. The subject at hand – the abuse of parliamentary staff, one of whom has said the bullying of her was so severe it left her with post traumatic stress disorder.
The subject was batted about for political gain and nothing more. The victims unmentioned. And then, here was the alleged bully himself, stepping in, gently to remind of the truth that cannot be questioned.
“Everyone is honourable”.
Mr Speaker, mate, maybe, you know, if you need to say it...
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