What is wrong with the Speaker?How is he so politically tone deaf that he cannot see that it is inappropriate for his wife to be standing as a Labour council candidate?
Can he not see that this will reinforce in the minds of Tory MPs that he is the wrong man to be Speaker and that his will be the shortest tenured Speakership (by the shortest Speaker) in English history?
14 comments:
So you can see him being forced out if the Tories win a majority next year Mr Blaney? Me too...though his PMQs performances over the last two weeks indicate that he is at least attempting to ingratiate himself with DC and co.
Surely Nigal Farage couldn't be more pleased
Good point, Boiling Frog. To Tory activists in Buckingham who do not have a candidate to vote for or to campaign for, it might entice them across to Farage's campaign (or at least to vote for him)...
If only this were true. Of course Ratboy deserves dismissal. His tenure in that august office is a standing insult to the Conservative Party. But the Party in Parliament are bungling fools. If they didn't have the gumption or nouse to block him when he stood, there's no hope of them acquiring balls a year later. They are gutless wretches.
Looks like Mike Smithson agrees: http://politicalbetting.com/index.php/archives/2009/11/12/am-i-right-to-put-more-money-on-farage/
Surely it's up to his wife what she does and is not up to him to decide what she can and can't do?
This post smacks a little bit of the old Harry Enfield sketch "Women - Know Your Place!".
I think you will find the days of husbands being able to control their wives are long gone.
Today's Telegraph article. certainly won't help!
Where do I say she should be controlled by her husband? Nowhere. What I say is that both he - and she - really ought to see that this is an appalling decision for the two of them to have arrived at.
If they spent less time plotting how to spend tens of thousands of pounds on redecorating their grace and favour apartment and more time thinking about the awesome responsibility of being Speaker and, yes, consort to the Speaker, then they wouldn't be quite so reviled. God's teeth: it took Gorbals Mick YEARS to be loathed this much!!
Donal. You are right, you do not explicitly state that she should be controlled by her husband but there is a very strong implication that she should be subservient to his career.
Why should she be?
No such implication at all. I know you are desperate to show Tories as bigots, Mark, but you fail once again.
The same point applied when Betty Boothroyd was Speaker or when Lady T was PM. Both spouses always need to think of the ramifications of career choices and proposed career moves on the positions in public life held by the other.
Not at all. I have a fairly strong track record in defending people, including Tories against spurious politically motivated attacks. For example a few months ago I annoyed some on my own side by defending Daniel Hannan against the attacks that came his way for his comments about Enoch Powell. I am by no means "desperate to show Tories as bigots".
So you are saying that I have misinterpreted your remarks and that you would have applied the same standard to anyone else in a similar position, regardless of gender. Fair enough, you know your own mind better than I do.
However I do still think it is unfair to expect a spouse of a senior political figure to have to forfeit their own political career and I don't agree. If you think Bercow is being partisan then he is fair game but in my view what his wife does is up to her.
"The same point applied when Betty Boothroyd was Speaker"
Eh? Boothroyd was (and is) unmarried.
The PRINCIPLE, you twunt.
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