The Case for Speaker Ming
Iain Dale reports that Ming Campbell is to throw his hat into the ring if and when the ‘Noes’ challenge the Speaker’s confirmation this afternoon.
This changes the dynamics of the situation greatly, Ming is respected across the benches, and unquestionably has the gravitas and dignity which would bring credit to the house. As a former silk he has the ability and authority to command respect, whereas John Bercow has on a number of occasions been on the edge of losing control of the House. The Squeaker certainly has lost self control.
People forget that Ming was one of twelve candidates for the position of Speaker when Betty Boothroyd stood down in 2000, but he lost out to Michael Martin. The House of Commons might have cause to regret that decision and may be minded to seize this second chance. Ming has one other great unspoken factor in his favour.
He isn’t John Bercow.
UPDATE : The betting has opened with Bercow heavily favoured to retain the Speakership.
Tannoy for Speaker
I am getting tired of having to provide Squeaker with my ladder all the time
And his wife is a disgrace, not even scrubber material…and a Zanu candidate
Where is the impartiality of the Office FFS ?
How would it leave the coalition if Minger became speaker and Bercow became Labour?
stronger!
Of course if it they can’t guaranteed it to be Ming then the Conservative can forget about replacing Bercow.
What ho comwades! Did you hear me make a bell end of myself on the Today pwogramme, Uncle Mandy gave me a list of things to say wegardless of the qwestion asked, and I ended up looking like some twot who’d been parachuted into a constituencey peopled by fwightful smelly wotters! Which is the case!
Toodle pip, up the workers, yo ho ho and a bottle if Bolly!
Nice one! And begs another question. In this age of supposedly more open politics should it not become a rule that any MP changing his party alignment has to resign and stand for election in the name of that party?
And should Bercow be forced to step down as Speaker, should he not anyway represent himself in front of his electorate, this time without the convention applied of the main parties not standing against him?
Judging by past practice he would not have to stand for re-election as he would be go direct to House of Lords – competetion time to choose his title – how about Lord Slimeball of Useless
Why does nobody seem to know what “begs the question” means?
It doesn’t mean “invites the question”.
I fear people leap for that expression with more haste than good speed.
Bring Back Betty!!!!
P dant…if we were all p dant then the language would suffer from a dearth of expressions. The trick of communication is to use language in a way people understand it, whether it is technically right or wrong.
No Sunday morning, I do not agree. P Dant is right. Words can and should communicate exact meanings to give precision to what you need to say and what needs to be understood. There are too many ignorant people who do not know the right word and then grasp the nearest thing to hand giving the phrase a distorted meaning.
Being precise will not cause a dearth of expression it will improve it. After all there are hundreds of thousands of words to chose from in the English language.
..and many of the words we have in the English language exist through error or have present day meaning distorted from the original meaning. Buttonhole is an example…it would never have come into being if people had continually corrected it as button-hold
Cleave is a useful word meaning to cling together or split asunder. Confused?
If Bercow is no longer speaker which side of the house will he sit on?
What a smug, self satisfied, pompous prick this little Berk is!!-this shows him in his true light.
Nadine, kick his fat little arse out the Speakers chair-this diminuitive Toady loves the idea of dispensing the robes of office notwithstanding his simultaneous determination to demand respect for his office will not wash.
This man has no respect.No authority and as such should be removed from office forthwith.
I agree.. He reminds of that other total prick… the Lord Archer…
Could we make it the basement? He can take his vulgar wife with him. Both out of sight and out of mind. Problem is, our MPs are famed for being a gutless little club, and I have no doubt that the new intake will maintain this terrible reputation when the whips spell out the facts of life.
Also known as Sally ‘bury me in a Y-shaped coffin’ Bercow.
With apologies to Blackadder.
There’s no shame in it, the bitch is one of my top earners at the parliamentary escort agency. Unlike Sarah fucking Teather. Where are the chubby chasers when I need them?
If he’s got any sense, he’ll take the traditional eerage and become a cross-bencher. He’ll then get the elbow when we have an all-elected Upper House.
On the fence like any good Cabbie
Erm isnt he like 130 yrs old?
Ming The Merciless for Speaker! – the only drawback is that he, too, has a dreadful Wife – Elspeth the Irritating.
Still, judging by our recent experiences of Speaker’s Wives (Gorbals Mick and Squeaker both had awful ‘Appendages’) perhaps it is now a prerequisite for a Speaker to have a suspect Spouse?…
Come in, No. 157 – your time is up!
I think Adam Boulton should do it.
With Cast Iron as his Flash Gordon what could possibly go wrong?
“He isn’t John Bercow.”
Like Dave and Nick weren’t Gordon. So perhaps we’ll end up with two speakers.
This makes sense, it’s tried and tested.
The BBC used to have only one person reading the news, now they employ two, to do one person’s job. So why not do that in the Commons, as well? Ming could start every sentence, and some blond-bimbo sidekick with big knockers could complete them for him.
Two are better than one, because they have a good return for their work:
If one falls down, his friend can help him up.
But pity the man who falls and has no one to help him up!
If bercow falls, I don’t want someone to help him up, I want someone who is going to stick the boot into the odious, pompus, useless little shit.
And that scrubber of a wife of his.
The fact he is speaker in the first place says a lot about the place. He is even worse than that old buffon Martin.
The fact his fool of a wife is a Labour MP, is unbelieveble, who was she up against for selection, and what kind of utter moron put a croos against her name?
That these two people are in any kind of position of power, shows the depths this country has plumbed.
W.W.
Dear WW. I hate to intrude on a good rant, but the flagrant Slaggy Bercow is not an MP but a failed local council candidate.
Don’t give the Squeaker ideas otherwise he’ll get his wife to be part of the double act. More troughing.
The double act you really want is the Sally Bercow/ Caroline Flint two girl. Roll up chaps, £250 the pair, today’s special offer. Throw in an extra tenner and you can get Sarah Teather too.
Harriet?
Noo! She’s not exactly eye-candy, is she?
Most of Dave’s Tattler Totty got slaughtered in the election, but one or two might have made it through. They ought to be bimbo enough.
If you have two speakers how a a woofer
Oops should have been about a woofer
Sally Bercow IS a woofer.
yop yop yop
Who are you calling a woofer ??
The house is already full of Tweeters
And one or two crossovers
If the new MPs want to make a clear statement that things have really changed then vote for Ming.
Vote Ming for an end to the nu liebore dynasty.
There needs to be a serious campaign to get Ming elected Speaker
Time is running out and there are many new boys and girls in this Parliament
Ming will only be elected by getting the movement up and running now as you are doing Guido
But we need to know the real level of support for Squeaker as well
The Scottish Labour mafia now have far less influence, thank God
But where do Clegg Cameron and their whips stand on this
There seems to be an ominous silence
Politics cannot be cleaned up with serial flipper and expense trougher Squeaker still there…we want “new politics” as well
Are you sure he is up to it, he looks like he is ready for a nice armchair and a werthers
Better get a move on then, You’ve got until 1430 today.
He should reinstate the garb:
http://ffmedia.ign.com/filmforce/image/article/701/701062/vonsydow-ming2_1144742653-000.jpg
One less rebel leader in the Limp Dim ranks, in next week’s news Charles Kennedy is offered Embassy in Outer Mongolia.
Chief taster for the scotish whiskey industry would be better for old pisspot Charlie !
especially as it’s spelt “whisky” The Other stuff is Irish, American, Welsh , Indian or Japanese
Welsh Whisky is also spelt without the ‘e’.
My Apologies – it just tastes like it should be spelt with a “e”.
The only ones with the ‘e’ are Irish and USA.
Everywhere else is spelt whisky.
# So if you see Whisky
# and it has an ‘e’,
# only take it,
# if you get it for free!
or Canadian.
Chief taster for the scotish whiskey industry would be better for old pisspot Charlie !
What else is there to do in Outer Mongolia?
A few cases of Chivas Regal a month would be a small price to pay for ridding the coalition of this turbulent crofter!
How many times do I have to tell you WE DON’T WANT HIM!!!
I’m right behind the campaign to get Nadine Dorries elected as Speaker, you know it makes sense
I stopped making sense years ago. You should try this.
It might do, but Nadine doesn’t.
She bloody well does. The milf lovers go mad for her, and for an extra twenty she’ll wear her old nurse’s uniform. It’s one of the proper ones with stockings, like Barbara Windsor used to wear, not the shapeless pant suits the fat slags wear nowadays. Hospital’s just no fun any more is it chaps?
Westminster will close ranks though. The front benches won’t want to openly oppose the Speaker, and the newbie MPs will do what their whips tell them.
All praise to Harpic, who left the proposal for the Speaker’s election to be a secret ballot off the paper, because she didn’t want the Tories getting rid of Bercow. Looks like she’ll get her wish.
Stupid of the House, really, because that little scumbag being embroiled in a career-ending scandal is an “if” not a “when”
I meant, of course “when not if”
When does the pub open?
Yes, quite right, anyone but Bercow. His position as one of the infamous troughers is completely untenable, and always was. Let’s face it, if NuLiebour MPs thought his appointment was a good idea then we should ditch him without a second thought.
I don’t care, I’ve got my pension. You can all go take a flying fuck at a rolling doughnut.
P.S. Vote Labour. My wife does.
You wife certainly ‘does’ by all accounts.
W.W.
Doughnut?
I’d have put you as a beigel type myself…
Plainly I don’t want you goyish types squirting your population paste over my ethnic foodstuffs.
When considering the position of Speaker Bercow we would be well advised to discount the words of embittered and partisan hacks, especially when there is a substantial constitutional argument to be made. Before New Labour brought dishonour to the position of Speaker, it was understood that the Speaker had to be supported by all sides of the House. Mr Bercow’s election depended upon the block vote of a party who chose for party-political reasons with the express purpose of discomforting a future tory government. As I remember, not a single Conservative MP supported Mr Bercow. Thus, the legitimacy of his appointment is in question. I would suggest that a challenge to Mr Bercow is justified in that in a traditionally free vote, We will end up with a speaker who does command the support of all parts of the House. If the vote is decided upon partiality and the desire for revenge, then the new Speaker will be as tarnished as the old. I personally believe that Bercow is a pillock, but I am more concerned that the office of Speaker will be confirmed as a party-political football rather than, as it should be, the defender of Parliament against an authoritarian Executive.
Agreed – not another partisan placeperson please.
Can anyone explain the steps taken to de select and re select a speaker, do they just yell out yea or nay when given a choice or what?
Is it typical archaic parliamentary practice?
Incidentally, i think Ming would be perfect.
I think that the rejection of a sitting speaker is without precedent, certainly in modern times, and maybe at any time since 1376 when the office was created. There have been some speakers considered as partisan within the last century and a half, e.g. William Shepherd Morrison.
So since the formality of re-appointment occurs, it would appear sufficient to hear cries of “No!” from the house which should then necessitate an election under the new 2000 rules. It is interesting that since that change, the house has not had a satisfactory speaker.
…..apart from the very large elephant in the room that you’re all ignoring – wasn’t the old boy in favour of limp dims chumming up with labour. Serious lack of judgement which should immediately disqualify him !
Morning sir! No elephants spotted here in sunny Llandudno …. yet!!!
Well at least Ming is not Blinky, it’s a wonder with his leadership campaign not cleared by Yvette yet, he hasn’t thought of throwing his hat in the ring.
Now think of that swiveled eye twat in the Speaker’s chair!
What sort of hat does Ming wear, do you think? I think a deerstalker in the country and a simple bowler in town.
Beats wearing a picklehaube like Blinky does when he is playing with Mrs. Balls.
A foil one I think.
No he got a silver plated one on expenses but he’s gonna flip it for a gold one soon.
How the hell did Bercow survive the election process?
Lots of people voted for him.
If I recall, the liebore MPs voted for him to annoy the tories…ffs.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cockroach#Hardiness and sections ff.
I do hope if they do manage to get rid of squeaker that he doesn’t end up in the Lords like gorbalsmick!
In the mould of the last speaker Gorbals Mick, Bercow is an odious money grabbing little shit of the first order his troughing is renown, hell he could even give Caroline Spelman and her husband a few lessons.
Tru dat
Toilets Maguire was a joke last night. Yet again the big nosed geordie twat ‘claimed’ that unemployment hadn’t risen as high thanks to the one eyed mong, but the price of that had been the 170 billion deficit.
What utter shit. No private sector jobs have been saved by the mong. What saved private sector jobs were the lack of left wing twat trade unions. Private sector workers were able to do deal with their companies to take pay freezes, pay cuts, unpaid holiday, early retirement and so on.
Not one job in the private sector was saved by the jock mong. As for the public sector, who gives a fuck? I’d sack the lot.
The 170 billion was only about saving labour from a complete wipe out in the election the jobs will still go
He was probably thinking of the public sector jobs which McSnotgobbler was creating right up to May 6. What Toilets has probably never recognized is that the increased value in GDP that McGobbler’s Darling achieved since the bottom of the recent recession was exceeded by a factor roughly of 10 in the cost to the national debt. This of course is not incompetent accounting, but gerrymandering on a criminal scale.
Ha, ha. Almost everyone isn’t Bercow.
Happy to see Berco go, elected by stich up, deselected by stich serves him well.
Can’t stand Ming but he would make an excellent Speaker.
Ming may not be John Bercow, but he’s as left wing as they come in the Lib Dems (which in some cases is way to the left of Labour).
Of course, John Bercow’s other problem (apart from being unable to command authority) is that his socialist wife will be blowing in his ear, making sure that he gives her mates in the Labour party plenty of ‘airtime’.
She’s more likely to be fisting him. He likes the more assertive sort of lady, does our John, or “lickspittle worm” as his good lady likes to call him at home. The great advantage of living in the Palace of Westminster is that you can make good use of the dungeons. And why not?
To lose one speaker may be regarded as unfortunate, to lose two looks like carelessness…
Alas, Frankie Field’s been taken out of the running.
They could always try an Ulster MP… how about Sylvia Herman?
Good God no. Ever hear her screechy harridan voice?
Really? Swap one greedy troughing bastard for another?
Ming is winged by his appearance on QT during the expenses saga.
“Greedy troughing bastard” – the guy lived in a bedsit for 20 years without doing it up for fear of ripping off the taxpayer. If you think Ming is a ‘trougher’ you’re essentially ruling out any but the new intake of MPs from being speaker.
Nadine Dorries for Speaker. She is far more attractive than the New Labour biased dwarf with the inflated ego.
We know they favour ed so now evertime he asks him a q we will be suspicious! His wife refers to people as smackheads and spends her
time slating the Tories – there isno place for that in the role – if they want respect
they need to start from the top -
You bastards !! I’ve just had the who place re-decorated !!
There’s no point choosing Minger Campbell the old fart will be dead soon!
Bercow is a monkeys cock
No hen I know would ever go near Bercow.
Will his heart hold out? There’s a lot of shouting involved.
Vote for me, I’m the best candidate for Speaker.
When the SNP won most seats at the last Holyrood election in Scotland Ming Campbell was caught secretly plotting with his mate Gordon Brown to stop Alex Salmond becoming First Minister. He likes to portray himself as some kind of honourable elder statesman but by that act alone he showed he was prepared to sideline democracy for party interest. This man is a chancer.
When the SNP won most seats at the last Holyrood election in Scotland Ming Campbell was caught secretly plotting with his mate Gordon Brown to stop Alex Salmond becoming First Minister. He likes to portray himself as some kind of honourable elder statesman but by that act alone he showed he was prepared to sideline democracy for party interest. This man is a chancer.”
Exactly!
Remember the above, my morris dancing friends, before you put your x in the wrong place!
YOU, of ALL nations, should know by now what happens when you elect Scottish Liebour thugs and their cohorts! Don’t let it happen again!
Ming at work:
Cruel but accurate.
Dozy bastards. Video – the fastest redundancy of any technology.
The original of these adverts was weird. We saw the character’s flesh rot off his bones, then he went into the routine!
Is Mark Oaten in the running?
As he’s not an MP, no.
No he’s in the runny.
He can’t talk with his mouth full.
I should point out that Sally the Bike isn’t an MP or anything else.
Wikipedia:
Ms Bercow, who has faced criticism for being a Labour activist married to a Conservative MP, was standing for Labour in the St James ward of Westminster City Council in the 2010 election. Her political ambitions were stalled when she lost the election, obtaining only 868 votes. This was about 1,000 less than her nearest rival.
Hand job’s fifty, blow job’s eighty, full sex one fifty, an extra fifty for anal. Or if you get her absolutely shitfaced, you’ll probably find it’s free. No head for business that girl, but fair play, she does put out.
Ming Campbell would be the worst possible choice for Speaker. Challenged on his dubious expenses claims he offered the most pathetic excuse imaginable: that the climate of public opinion was different at the time.
Of course it was, you pratt. We didn’t know about the abuse of expenses at the time. It is a bit like Peter Sutcliffe saying people thought he was a decent bloke before they found out about the murders. He more or less said that he did it because he thought he would never get caught.
When it comes to the expenses scandal – the single thing which has done most to damage the reputation of Parliament for centuries – Ming just doesn’t get it.
He could never be the face of reform.
No, the worst possible choice was Speaker Martin, followed closely by Bercow.
Actually, and if you fish out the retraction the Telegraph printed you’ll confirm this, Ming pointed out that his expenses claim for an interior decorator was set against two decades of what were consistently some of the lowest expenses claims in the house. The reason for this is because he stays in a tiny bedsit as his London residence and, when he became party leader, was told he had to have it done up so he figured (not unreasonably) that it would be legitimate to spend his second home allowance on his second home. He has since been given to understand that this isn’t the case anymore in ‘the current climate’.
“Sir Menzies said he believed that the claims to refurbish his one-bedroom flat were “within the spirit and letter of the rules”.
“I have rented a studio flat at Dolphin Square for 20 years, during which time I have had no substantial claims for maintenance,” he said.
“I have a protected rent until 2034, which together with the parking place come to less than £800 per month.”
He was faced with a choice of renting a large property –costing the taxpayer more – or having the flat renovated. ” – http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/mps-expenses/5314759/Sir-Menzies-Campbell-hired-top-designer-for-10000-overhaul-of-flat-MPs-expenses.html
“If and when the ‘noes’ challenge the Speaker’s confirmation”.
Big IF. The Whips will be clamping down on the recent incumbents to Westminster. The newbies either will be too scared or lacking in knowledge to challenge the Whips.
Don’t know so much. Nadine’s email to them all might be a clincher.
Either way it goes, Bercow is self-damaged goods and might not last his term…
I’m not convinced that there will be a majority of noes.
Although recent events may yet lead to further surprises.
Bercow is, as you say, self-damaged goods. A new Speaker may help to give an impression that the sweeping away of the Old Guard is being accomplished.
“Here comes the new boss, same as the old boss” is still playing inside my head though.
Mings outstanding ability to NOT be John Bercow makes him an ideal candidate.
Vote Bercow.
Bercow was re-elected, so his constitunts deserve that horror, the crooks in the house elected him, so they deserve Bercow, so whats new pussycat . . . . oh . . . same old faces same old (_:_)rseholes . . . reform tossed into the river . . . we get what we deserve . . . .
So a bet against Bercow might be worth it?
If only it were that simple. The Squeaker stands between today’s supine MPs and an over-powerful Executive. It is high time that we selected someone of stature and a certain independence of thought. I’m not saying that old Ming is necessarily that person, but Bercow definitely isn’t.
Same old Tories
Hat Tip politicsworld
George Osborne’s father-in-law given plumb job. http://is.gd/ceoC1 #ukpolitics
Is this therefore plumb line?
Old Holborn for Speaker
good to see anew parliament beginning in the time celebrated manner – no change in the systems and the squalor of the legislature then
This is a load of hyped up nonsense….here’s a certainty…at close of the proceedings Bercow will still be Speaker and the “Cunning Plot” led by Dorries and Co will have run into the sand and come to nothing…….
There’s a lot more fun to be had baiting Bercow than mocking Ming. Anyway, is anyone missing that miserable bastard Brown?
“The betting has opened with Bercow heavily favoured to retain the Speakership.” – Iain Dale says voting is public and as such reckons new MPs will vote for the incumbent, not wanting to make enemies.
Will the Speaker be cornered?
http://fxbites.blogspot.com/2010/05/speaker-cornered.html
Ah Ming Campbell
Yes elect him speaker, at 69, he will be able to nod off and no will notice
by the time the next election comes in 5 years time, he will be 74 and dribbling
Unkind? not really
Ming abused his expenses and is totally uncceptable as speaker.
Well, there are more Tory MPs now now of course than when when Bercow was chosen as speaker. He was only elected asa result of a vindictive action by Labour MPs, so if MPs voted according to their convictions, Bercow would be elected out.
He isn’t a finer silk…
The little shit had to “dragged” to the chair – plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose
What a totally pathetic, lilly livered bunch of arsholes. They had the chance to make this a fresh parliament, but they re-elect this oily little idiot. Nothing changes really, does it?