Bercow Can't Add Up

Bercow seems to think that he is going to be the star of the All-New Reformed-Parliament Show. So far, though, he has not struck me as the sort of person who will do anything other than an absolutely terrible job. He's full of what is clearly Labour reform spin and he sounds, frankly, dishonest. Why? Well, he can't even take it on the chin that his own party didn't vote for him. The Tories knew he was being forced on them out of Brownite spite - and the sums speaks for themselves. His vote count equates almost perfectly with the number of people on the Labour benches, combined with a few lefty Lib Dems. Young's votes almost exactly correlate with the entire Tory body count, combined with a few dozen moderate Lib Dems, a very few decent Labourists and a smattering of Independents. (The rumour is that three (mad) Tories voted for him.)

Watch yesterday's interview with Boulton (although the Bradby one was far better - but it's a hassle to rip). This turncoat idiot thinks he's some kind of minister. And a Labour one, to boot. Well, make your own mind up.


Then we have today's Telegraph report that the 'reform' these MPs have opted for is nothing of the kind, (as I humbly predicted yesterday). The 'transparency' promised will not be forthcoming. They've covered all their bases and protected their piggy backsides once again. Are we surprised? I think not.

But one thing is clear to me, and should be clear to everyone else: this is all Brown's work. Parliament is rotten, sure. But if you want to know what (or rather who) represents the diseased heart of that rot, then this Bill should provide final, incontravertible evidence: it is Brown. As the Heff says, Bercow is Labour's last insult to voters. Sure, he's Labour's last insult, but this Bill is not Brown's last lie. There will be many more of those to come in what will be the last months of his pitiful premiership. He lies. Through his teeth. All the time. That's just "what he does" - ably aided and abetted by the likes of Balls, Harperson, Woodward, Mandelson - and now Bercow.

Guido Fawkes has examined the government's new Bill in some detail and has written about it in what I think is one of his best pieces yet. These are his conclusions:

[It] is a stitch up, we don’t need more rules and self-selected regulators, we need reform of the expenses system, together with clarity, transparency and enforcement of the rules. The voters will kick out MPs if they can identify crooks, in this sense in a democracy voters are the ultimate regulator of politicians. This whole idea is ill-founded, we don’t need to intermediate democracy with another quango or committee, this approach has already failed.

We need only to empower voters with enough information so that they can determine the truth about those who seek to represent them. The truth is all we need, not redactions, not more quangocrats.

Amen to that. And it's a message that needs to be shouted out loud every minute of every day from now until the dissolution. Someone in that disreputable House will eventually listen, surely.

One thing we do know for sure, though, is that that person won't be John Bercow.

All he does is speaks.