TabWolf: Bercow lauded in “snivelling” Palatinate, actually “supercilious, tedious and spurious”

A few days ago I came across an article on the Palatinate waxing in a nauseatingly sycophantic fashion about the appearance of the panjandrum that is the Speaker of the House of Commons John Bercow at the Durham Union Society.

Despite attending, I never intended to write a review of the address. I have always watched John Bercow with some degree of curiosity since he became Speaker due in main to his consummate cross bench unpopularity – his performances in the House tend to be on the wrong side of belligerent – but I have never been truly interested in him as an individual.

A “nauseatingly sycophantic” article on The Speaker’s visit

He is unfortunately just a bit dull. However this article on the Palatinate was so snivelling – it quite easily could have been written by Bercow’s propaganda tsar – that it has spurred me into action and I have decided to write an equally un-objective article on his performance.

In terms of his address, it was a speech that concentrated mainly on praising himself for the changes he had implemented in the House of Commons, including his self-proclaimed success in drastically increasing the efficacy of questioning and answering in the House, specifically in PMQs.

Ironically for a speech that extolled the extreme virtues of succinctness it was a speech of such contrived verbosity and superfluousness, with such an excess of adjectives and rhetorical tricolons that it nearly made me throw up. That sentence coming far short of some of the rhetorical pathos spewing from Bercow’s mouth on the evening. It is nothing more than amusing, yet slightly worrying, that at some stages during his career John Bercow has given tutorials in public speaking.

Other notable moments included some impersonations of other politicians including a slightly rancorous one of Lord Patrick Cormack whom he competed against in the speaker’s election, and who he stated “liked the sound of his own voice”. By this stage of the talk quite how John Bercow could summon the conviction to level that criticism against anyone other than himself I don’t know. In any case he managed it.

It would be false if I said there were not some laughs throughout the evening, some decent gags about Churchill and plenty of bankers about his height, or lack of. So potentially the man does have a sense of humour but I am yet to be convinced assuredly that his self-deprecation is not just a front for a harboured insecurity over his ‘stature’. (see video below)

I had a question for Mr Bercow on the night but being too much of a coward to ask it myself I palmed it on to a friend who asked it with far less vitriol than I could have mustered.

“Mr Bercow do you think where on the one hand you have sacrificed the ability to speak publicly on issues since your appointment your wife has more than taken up the mantle on your behalf.”

If anyone is unaware of the notorious entity that is Sally Bercow I suggest you indulge in a Phillip Schofield style google, because in 10 minutes you can find out all that you really need to know about this opprobrious woman.

His response was expectedly defensive of his wife and he loyally stated that he would not apologise for her behaviour at all. He went on to level blame at the right wing press, notably the Daily Mail, who he claims opine that as wife of the Speaker she should be expected to stay at home, to cook and clean and moreover hold no opinions of her own.

However this is unfortunately where Mr Bercow falls foul, as repellent as the Mail can be and as obvious as the point is that no one would either expect or countenance the wife of a politician being subservient or invisible, Sally Bercow surely has a case to answer.

“Hard drinking layette” Sally Bercow was defended by her husband who blamed her image on the media…right

The hard drinking ladette’s notable stunts have included; posing ‘seductively’ draped in a bed sheet overlooking the Houses of Parliament, going on Celebrity Big Brother and getting voted off first, tweeting libellous messages falsely accusing Lord Mcalpine of being a paedophile, suggesting online that she would like to try a drug the government were in the process of delegalizing and generally just drunkenly slobbing around London with an enormous foot secured firmly in her mouth.

I didn’t watch her on Celebrity Big Brother, so I don’t know precisely why she was voted off first. Frankly I am too much of a snob to waste weeks of my life watching washed up celebrities with serious issues dribbling filth at each other in a controlled environment. However I am told that it is a vaguely democratic ‘voting-off’ process, and as such she was voted off first because she is widely disliked, by everyone.

The fact is that it is embarrassing when the wife of a politician tries to leech off the position of her husband to further her spurious career as a shit celebrity. Amusingly when Mr Bercow then uses the chance to speak directly at the girls in the audience to warn them not to underestimate the level of sexism in society, one has to wonder whether he actually knows what he is talking about.

Despite the premise of his point probably being legitimate it seems to me that he has come to think that the simple criticising of a woman bears the hallmark of sexism in all cases, a viewpoint that no doubt has been pushed upon him by his wife whose only defence now is that any ribbing of her must be coming from right leaning misogynist journalists at the Mail.

Overall I was not as impressed by Mr. Bercow as my counterpart at the Palatinate, I found him to be a supercilious and slightly tedious man who by comparing his role as Speaker to the headmaster of a rabble of unruly schoolchildren showed too much of his hand. Claiming Aung San Suu Ki as one of his closest friends was equally spurious.

At the after dinner drinks Bercow was overheard saying on the receipt of some grovelling praise from one enamoured female fan, “Thank you, it’s good to be able to spread the word!” My source did not hear the rest of the conversation but I presume he was telling her how he is the new political messiah.