Matthew Taylor

Sunday shows round-up: ‘I do not identify with the Conservative party’, says John Bercow

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John Bercow – ‘I do not identify with the Conservative party’

Last night, it was revealed that the former Commons Speaker John Bercow had not merely distanced himself from his former party, but had disowned it altogether. Interviewed by the Observer, he castigated the Conservative party as ‘reactionary, populist, nationalistic and sometimes even xenophobic’. Bercow’s jump across the divide may come as no surprise to some, but in doing so he has become the first ex-Speaker to ever make such a move back into the political arena. Trevor Phillips spoke to Bercow, once an enthusiastic figure on the Tory right, about the reasons for his change of allegiance:
JB: My values are left of centre. I do not identify with the Conservative party… If you believe, as I do, that this government is bad news… you have to ask yourself, do you want rid of it? And if you want rid of it… The only credible vehicle for the removal of this government is the election of a Labour government.

Boris Johnson ‘has only a nodding acquaintance with the truth’

Phillips asked Bercow if Boris Johnson was a key factor in his desire to make Labour his adoptive home. Bercow said that he had embarked upon his personal journey long before Johnson took the helm of the Conservative party, but couldn’t resist a jibe in the Prime Minister’s direction:
JB: It’s not personal against Boris Johnson. I do think that he is someone who has only a nodding acquaintance with the truth in a leap year, and I think that the utter contempt with which he has treated Parliament is lamentable… but no, I have, over a long period evolved my political thinking.

‘I have had no discussion’ about peerage

It has been suggested that an underlying motive for Bercow’s leap into the arms of his former opponents could be the government’s refusal to grant him a peerage. It has been a parliamentary tradition to offer Speakers a peerage on their retirement, with even Bercow’s predecessor Michael Martin being ennobled in the wake of the 2009 expenses scandal. Bercow denied that this was a motivating factor:
JB: I have had absolutely no discussion whatsoever, either with Keir Starmer, or with any other member of the Labour leadership about that matter. That has been no barter, no trade, no deal whatsoever.

Suggestion I presided over ‘bullying culture’ is ‘quite wrong’

Phillips confronted Bercow over allegations dating from his time in the chair, namely that he had bullied his staff. Bercow categorically denied that there was any truth to the rumours, which include those made in a formal complaint by a previous Clerk of the House, Lord Lisvane:



JB: I’m not going to bury anything. The suggestion that I presided over that culture is quite wrong…

TP: …Can you say that you never did anything that you felt you now regret… in relation to this issue of bullying?

JB: We all make mistakes. Have I been perfect in every instance? Can I say that, with the benefit of hindsight, I wouldn’t have done something differently? Of course I couldn’t.

Robert Buckland – ‘You can’t ever say mission accomplished’

The Justice Secretary Robert Buckland spoke to Tom Newton Dunn on Times Radio. Earlier on the Marr programme, Professor Susan Hopkins of Public Health England had suggested that a future lockdown may occur in the winter if hospitals became overwhelmed. Buckland did not rule such an occurrence out:
RB: You can’t ever say ‘mission accomplished’. It isn’t like that…

TND: I don’t think you’re ruling out a lockdown in the winter if [needs be], are you?

RB: I don’t want one. I don’t think anybody wants lockdowns. We’ve just got to relentlessly push on… to make the need for lockdown much less than it’s ever been in the past.

Hancock did not keep PM in the dark

Phillips asked Buckland about a claim made in the Telegraph that the Health Secretary Matt Hancock had deliberately withheld information from the Prime Minister about the success of the vaccine rollout against the Delta variant. The charge is that had Johnson known about it, then the recent extension of Covid restrictions to July 19th may not have been implemented. Buckland emphatically denied that Hancock had kept his data under his hat:
RB: That report is wrong. The data was provided to the Prime Minister… in the most up-to-date way before the decision was made on Monday. Those taking part in the meeting had all the relevant data in the most up to date way.

Labour’s resignation call ‘constitutionally illiterate’

Nick Robinson also interviewed Buckland and grilled him on the poor progress of the criminal justice system in prosecuting rape, with recent figures showing only 3 per cent of all reported cases in England and Wales resulted in a conviction. His shadow, David Lammy, has called for Buckland to resign if these figures cannot be turned around within the next year. However, Buckland rebuked Lammy for politicising the issue:
RB: We’ve set out a clear aim to get convictions rates… and indeed the volume of prosecutions back up, to the levels that they were five years ago, by the end of the Parliament… It is constitutionally illiterate to suggest that a politician… should in any way command and control the way in which police and independent prosecutors go about their work. That would be wrong.

John Bercow left the Tories ‘a long time ago’

Phillips invited Buckland to comment on John Bercow’s defection to the Labour party. Buckland said that he was entitled to his own views:
RB: John Bercow left the Conservative party a long time ago… He’s entitled to make private decisions about his politics… I think that his predecessors’ authority was enhanced by their refusal to go back into party politics. I think him joining a political party actually has the effect of diminishing the force of his voice in politics.

Outdoor weddings could have many more guests

Buckland told Phillips about the government’s latest plans to allow non-religious weddings and civil partnerships to be held outside. This change is being implemented from July through to next April, with a consultation on whether to make it permanent to follow. It is hoped that this will allow the number of guests to grow considerably beyond the current limit of 30:
RB: The reforms I’ve announced today… create greater flexibility for premises to have more guests in a safe way… Each premises will have its own guidance and its own rules, but it just allows couples to be more imaginative about the way in which they can accommodate friends and loved ones.

Andy Burnham – SNP treating North of England ‘with contempt’

Robinson interviewed the Mayor of Greater Manchester Andy Burnham. Burnham raised his eminent displeasure at the ban on Scottish residents from being allowed to travel to Manchester or Salford, effective from this Monday, in accordance with the Scottish government’s Covid restrictions. He told Robinson that he would be writing to Nicola Sturgeon later today:

AB: I was really disappointed on Friday, that the First Minister of Scotland, just announced out of the blue as far as we were concerned, a travel ban… That is exactly what the SNP always accuse the Westminster government of doing – just riding roughshod over people. The SNP are treating the North of England with the same contempt.

Compulsory care home jabs are not right

Burnham also took issue with the guidance that workers in care homes should have compulsory vaccinations:
AB: In this country, we’ve not gone down the route of compelling people to have vaccines – effectively saying having have the vaccine or lose your job… I don’t think that can be right. You strongly encourage people to do it, by giving them all of the information and making it as easy as possible.

Ed Davey – ‘Blue wall’ has ‘been taken for granted’

One of the key political stories of the week has been the Conservative party’s surprise defeat to the Liberal Democrats in the Chesham and Amersham by-election, called after the death of Dame Cheryl Gillan. A variety of issues have been raised as contributing to the defeat, from the government’s proposed planning reforms, to the construction of HS2 in the constituency, to a desire for fiscal discipline. The leader of the winning party, Sir Ed Davey, told Phillips about the Lib Dems ambitions for the future:
ED: The Liberal Democrats showed that Boris Johnson could be beaten… People, not just in Chesham and Amersham, but across the ‘blue wall’ seats, I think have been taken for granted… I think the blue wall in the South can be taken by the Liberal Democrats in large numbers of constituencies.

Steve Reed – Voters sought the best way to beat Tories

And finally, the Shadow Housing Secretary Steve Reed gave his verdict on why Labour had seen their vote share in the Chesham and Amersham by-election fall to a record low of 1.6 per cent:
SR: What I think happened is that voters took their own decisions about the best way to defeat the Conservative candidate… so Labour voters leant their support to the Liberal Democrat who was best positioned…. Voters took their own decision and defeated Boris Johnson.

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