Speaker’s Corner (2020)

Book Review from the April 2020 issue of the Socialist Standard

Unspeakable. John Bercow. Weidenfeld and Nicolson. 2020. £20

It was always likely that recently retired House of Commons Speaker John Bercow would produce a memoir that settled a few scores, and he hasn’t disappointed. He clearly has an issue with the British establishment and those that personify it, and ‘snobbish’ David Cameron comes in for particularly vitriolic treatment. To give you a flavour of Bercow’s style: ‘In the pantheon of great leaders, the name of David Cameron will never feature. In a list of opportunist lightweights, it will be at the top’.

Then on to Theresa May: ‘Rudderless, without imagination, and with few real friends at the highest level, she stumbled on, day to day, lacking clarity, vision and the capacity to forge a better Britain. In a contest as to who has been the worst Prime Minister since 1945, it is hard to choose between Anthony Eden and Theresa May’.

And on Boris Johnson: ‘As a debater he is undistinguished and, as a public speaker, though humorous, he is often downright poor – hesitant, unable to string sentences together fluently and about as likely ever to warrant the description “captivating orator” as Bertie Wooster… Apart from those notable limitations in a man who has since become Prime Minister, he is, at his occasional best, a passably adequate politician in an age not replete with them’.

Bercow’s own story of course is an interesting one, the son of a Jewish cab driver who gravitated from a youthful dalliance with the right-wing, anti-immigration Monday Club to a barely disguised left-ish stance. This gained him much opprobrium during the Brexit debates, with allegations that he was a biased ‘remainer’, with an influential Labour-campaigning spouse, Sally.

In fairness, as political autobiographies go, it is more entertaining than most, despite the criticism it has received from many reviewers. Bercow likes to see himself in the mode of a parliamentary ‘reformer’ and the dominant thread is about the battles he fought with traditionalists and conservatives of every stripe, including those who took an ill view of his attempts to support the rights of backbench MPs against those of the executive.

There is a surprisingly interesting (and on occasion well-argued) Epilogue where he looks at the future of parliament and of the UK as a whole over the next decade and more. He picks out the key defining features of the UK well, including the influence of its island status (with a total coastline and sea exposure greater than that of either Brazil or India), and the overwhelming dominance of London, which skews the UK population and capital distribution to something more akin to countries in the Third World.

Interestingly, whatever insight and vitriol he has to muster, little if any of it is directed at Labour’s Jeremy Corbyn. Indeed, one suspects he will no doubt become Lord Bercow soon enough (even if he is not – as is usual – nominated by the Prime Minister of the day, but by the outgoing Leader of the Opposition).

Dave Perrin