John Bercow

John Bercow
Name	John Simon Bercow (born 19 January, 1963)
Nicknames	Mr. Speaker (MPs), Mr. Squeaker (Quentin Letts) Mr. B (Sally Bercow)
Politics
Party	None (formerly Conservative)
Constituency	Buckingham (1997-2019)
Positions	• Speaker of the House of Commons (2009-2019) • Shadow Secretary of State for International Development (2003-2004) • Shadow Chief Secretary to the Treasury (2001-2002)
Likes	long words, brightly patterned ties, tennis
Dislikes	Shouty MPs, The Daily Mail, bees
Friends	Chris Bryant, Charles Walker, Julian Lewis, Alan Duncan, Michael Portillo
Enemies	David Cameron, George Osborne, Michael Gove, Michael Fabricant, Simon Burns
Relationships
Partners	Sally Bercow (married 2002)
Children	Oliver Bercow (2003), Freddie Bercow (2005), Jemima Bercow (2008)
Personal Attributes
Nationality	English
Religion	Jewish
Sexuality	Straight
Height	5' 6.5"
Eye Colour	Brown
Handedness	Right
Accent	Received Pronunciation

Order, order! The House must calm itself, taking whatever medicaments are required for the purpose. ~ John Bercow on an average Wednesday

John Bercow is a former Speaker of the House of Commons. He had the ability to shut 640+ MPs up with a single word, thus making him an utter BAMF. Well, some of the time at least.

He is also adored by the fandom for his amazingly dry wit and interesting collection of ties.

He is often referred to as "Mr. Speaker" in the House, however, the computerised subtitles provided by the BBC have been known to mistake this title as "Mrs. Big Eyes". It may be utterly ridiculous, but Beeb, we see what you mean.

Life and Career

Early Life

John once appeared on the television show Crackerjack when he was little

Even as an annoyingly precocious child, John Bercow loved to play tennis. And, for a while, he was good at it. Very good. He was the best in the country for his age and was the number one seed at the national championships in the under 12s category. He used to play 18 year olds and beat them and this made lots of people very annoyed with him. It also gained him somewhat of a strange fanclub, some of whom printed and wore t-shirts with the slogan "John Bercow bites yer legs" in reference to his diminutive stature and how angry he was.

However, not everyone liked him. He attended Frith Manor Primary School in Woodside Park, and Finchley Manorhill, a large comprehensive school in North Finchley and was ruthlessly bullied for his pompous attitude, right-wing politics and his appearance. Adolescence wasn't kind to Bercow, gracing him with greasy hair, acne and a distinct lack of growth spurts. In addition to herding bees and wasps through windows to watch Bercow freak out, the school bullies picked him up and threw him in the school pond. Although Bercow was smart enough, the headteacher at his school would not allow him to sit the exams for grammar school which has been a chip on Bercow's shoulder ever since.

When not being bullied or playing tennis, young Bercow could be found reading The Times and moaning about immigrants.

It may be rightwing, but you'd still hit that. Literally.

John graduated with a first-class honours degree in government from the University of Essex in 1985. He was ruthlessly bullied there too, including people sticking a pizza to a noticeboard with the caption "John Bercow". He spent a lot of time arguing with people and, as would later become a defining trend in his life, trying to flirt with Labourites.

Pre-political Career

Even though practically from the time he was born Bercow wanted to be an MP, he spent some years getting there. In addition to being a Local Councillor and a SpAd, he worked for a short time in PR, including for Saatchi & Saatchi. Many people say he should have stayed there. During his time working outside politics, John also toured America, giving speeches on leadership and communication. Along with his best friend (and current MP) Julian Lewis, John ran a successful public speaking course for ten years which many current MPs have at one point or another attended.

Early Political Career

Even when working outside politics, John was still at least slightly involved in Conservative Party politics. He held a number of positions including head of the Federation of Conservative Students (where he presided over it's forced dissolution by Norman Tebbit when one of its members accused Harold Wilson of war crimes) and the head of the body brought in to replace the Federation of Conservative Students.

Councillor

John Bercow was elected as a Conservative Councillor to Lambeth Council in 1986, a time when the Council was known for being incredibly left-wing and militant. In 1987, Bercow was elected the youngest Deputy Group Leader in the UK because there were basically no other candidates for the position and he's always tried to be an overachiever.

Special Adviser

John Bercow was initially Special Adviser to Jonathan Aitken in March 1995 until the Guardian ran a story about Aitken allegedly arranging prostitutes for a Saudi arms dealer on a business trip. From August 1995, Bercow worked for Virginia Bottomley. That didn't really work out since she was a wet and he was a radical right Tory headbanger. The Guardian commented on the unusually arrangement thusly:

"No one at Westminster can imagine why the soaking-wet Mrs Bottomley would appoint a bumptiousm abrasive libertarian free-marketeer like Mr Bercow, who is said to have both the far-right politics and physical stature of Alan Duncan, but without the attendant personal charm."~ The Guardian, 30th August 1995

Parliamentary Career

Pre-Speakership

Bercow was elected in 1997 after unsuccessfully standing in both 1987 (in Scotland) and 1992 (against Dawn Primarolo who would later go on to become one of his Deputy Speakers). In 1996 he had put his name forward for two safe Tory seats - Buckingham and Surrey Heath. When both local associations invited him to speak at candidate hustings on the same night, Bercow was ever so slightly screwed as there was no way he would be able to drive from one meeting to the other in time. Instead of choosing and only attending one, John hired a helicopter to fly him between the meetings. When he was selected as the candidate for Buckingham, he described it as "the best £1,000 I have ever spent".

When giving a speech as to his progression and change as an MP over the years, John referred to his growth in three stages - Bercow Mark One, Two and Three.

Bercow Mark One was often described by the press as a right-wing Labour attack dog. He spent most of his time in parliament to the detriment of his personal life. During this time John liked nothing more than to humiliate the government on whatever policy he could without actually thinking about what he was doing or standing for. Most of the Tories liked this Bercow as he would spend hours in the chamber picking upon even the tiniest of issues with the Labour policy and he was such a parliamentary nerd that he'd actually enjoy it. Labour didn't really like this version of John Bercow.

Bercow Mark Two was when John went through a period of self-reflection. He began to realise that actually he didn't hate gay people, that immigration can be a good thing sometimes and that poor people need money too. This didn't sit well with the rest of the Conservative Party and mostly just confused Labour. Nevertheless, he continued to be angry and confused and attack the government but his heart wasn't really in it. A series of personality clashes with senior members of the party (including party leaders) and resigning from the front bench over a 3 line whip against same-sex adoption and other trivial little things brought him to the conclusion that he was never actually going to get that far in Conservative Party politics. It's about this time that he started looking for something else to do with his life, but since he was a politics geek he couldn't actual do much else. It was then he realised that if he couldn't progress up the party structure, he'd just have to make a career outside of the party. That's when he set his sight on the Speakership.

Bercow Mark Three was John in pre-campaigning mode. He knew that in order to become Speaker he'd have to have friends on both sides of the House and set about cozying up to the Labour Party. The longer he was an MP, the further leftward he drifted until everyone thought it was only a matter of time before he defected. Despite the best efforts of Gordon Brown and Ed Miliband (and to the general irritation of David Cameron which whom John had feuded for years and who was by that point Leader of the Conservative Party) Bercow remained a Tory until he became Speaker.

As Speaker

John Bercow is HBIC.

He has the one prejudice that every House of Commons Speaker should have: he is biased against the front benches in favour of the back benches.~ Douglas Carswell

During his time and Speaker John has presided over a shift in parliamentary culture. He was elected following the resignation of the previous Speaker Michael Martin over his handling of the Expenses Scandal and there was a general feeling that reform was needed. John changed the sitting times of Parliament to help people with work-family balance, introduced the parliamentary crèche to enable people with child care responsibilities to be an MP and other similar measures. His most noticeable change in parliament has been the huge number of Urgent Questions he has granted while Speaker in an attempt to bolster the power of the legislature over the executive. This has lead people to believe (not necessarily incorrectly) that he is biased in favour of the Labour Party.

In fandom his Speakership had been notable for his verbal smackdowns.

Not everyone is a big fan of him as Speaker. There have been rumours of coup attempts since he basically took on the job. Some MPs are so annoyed by him that they formed their own special club, the BBB Club where they can go and bitch about him to like-minded people.

He got his first mobile phone in 2009 after Dr Julian Lewis told him he needed one for the campaign to be elected Speaker because otherwise no one would know where he was and that would be very embarrassing for everyone except Bercow.

Coup Attempt

Mr Speaker: Order, order.

Tory Jackass: You won't be saying that in a month!

The Labour Party: Oh yes he will!

On 25 March 2015, the penultimate day of the coalition's final parliament, the government tabled a motion for a one hour debate on the final day to change the way the Speaker is re-elected after a general election. They wanted to change it to a secret ballot from the open vote as it currently happens. This would basically mean that the Tory front bench could oust Bercow and no face any reprisals - there were rumours that the Tories were hoping the changes would allow them to trade the Speakership for support in the event of another hung parliament. Because of the way the motion was tabled, there was no way to change the motion, there were only 2 hours to table amendments even though no one knew the vote was going to happen, there was no way to have an emergency debate or lobby to change the allotted time... the Tory front bench thought they had it all sorted. A 3 line whipped meeting with Linton Crosby had them convinced that they'd have the numbers to vote through the motion.

John was, understandably, not very happy, and did his best to put off the debate as long as possible - granting 3 Urgent Questions including one on the debate itself - in order for his supporters to be brought back from all over the country.

There was a bloody few hours where a lot of people verbally attacked William Hague (the MP who represented the motion in the Commons) and the Chair of the Commons' Procedure Committee gave a speech so powerful (he felt that the Tories were purposefully misusing and misrepresenting the report the committee produced looking, among other things, the issue of secret ballot to re-elect the Speaker) that not only did he cry, but Labour burst into applause and Bercow was also very close to tears. PETER BONE!!! spoke in favour of the Speaker, as did Jacob Rees-Mogg, Chris Bryant, David Nuttall - even Gordon Brown showed up and voted for the Speaker.

It was a tight vote but in the end the government motion was defeated 202-228.

This led to Bercow going from weepy-"They really like me"-mode to "It's a good thing for the Tory front bench I'm not actually a vengeful wizard"-mode.

The very expensive painting of John that very few people liked.

This doesn't necessarily meant that there won't be future debates on the issue of secret ballot re-elections, but it did give the government and Hague a bloody nose on his last day in parliament - which also happened to be his birthday!

2015-2020 Parliament

During the 2015 general election, the tabloids revealed that Sally had been having an affair with John's cousin while he was away campaigning for his seat. David Cameron discovered that he had, after all, a tiny vestige of shame and instructed his party not to kick a man while he was down and contest John's re-election. Perhaps his new, more competent Chief Whip Mark Harper told him he simply didn't have the numbers to carry the vote. Since the ballot would not have been secret contesting the election would have been a high-risk strategy, but then, all the Government's bridges to the Speaker had already been reduced to a few charred pylons so it's not clear what they had to lose. Perhaps they were simply moved by the eloquence of Jacob Rees-Mogg's nomination speech, which spoke warmly of John's record of championing Parliament and very coldly of the Government's constitutional chicanery. Regardless of their motives, the Tories waved John through and he was duly re-elected.

This may have been a crucial error, as the Government swiftly discovered that John had used up his last fuck policing the SNP's juvenile parliamentary rule-breaking and had none left to give about avoiding the appearance of bias. He wasn't going to be standing for re-election as Speaker, his home life was falling apart, he was probably as disappointed by the election result as Ed Miliband, he hated the Government, he loved Chris Bryant, and he no longer cared enough to try and hide it. Which is how Chris was awarded two Urgent Questions on the Fifa scandal before Parliament had been sitting a week and a third on the changes to the BBC license fee before the summer recess had even happened and another UQ followed by a SO24 debate on the Wilson Doctrine shortly after.

John also agreed to be the first Speaker ever to address the annual Trade Union Congress just days after the Labour Party elect their new leader. His speech wasn't exactly outstanding, but the fact that he did it cause a few raised eyebrows.

Then John decided to take on China. In October 2015, a series of steel works announced massive numbers of job losses, in part due to being unable to keep up with competing Chinese imported steel. This just so happened to coincide with a state visit from Xi Jinping, China's President. John granted a UQ to the Labour Party on the issue, and then called Sajid Javid, the minister in charge, "discourteous and incompetent" for failing to give a statement instead and that it was "blindingly obvious" that Sajid's response to the UQ was too long, meaning that few MPs got to ask him questions than should have been able to. Intervening during a question following the UQ comparing the UK's relationships with China and India ahead of Indian prime minister Narendra Modi's visit to the UK the following month, John said from the Chair "And of course the Indian prime minister is the representative of a great democracy" in a pointed attack on the President of China. Things got even worse when John had to introduce the President at the address to the joint Houses of Parliament. John began with:

'Welcome to the Royal Gallery. Mr President. We have had no fewer than four prominent daughters and sons of Asia in our Parliament in the last three years, starting with Aung Sang Suu Kyi of Burma – the Nobel peace prize winner, democracy champion and international symbol of the innate human right of freedom.

He then went on to say that "what China does economically, but also politically, is seen by and relevant to not merely your own citizens, it is seen by and relevant to billions more across the globe. The world will be watching and waiting expectantly" and that China should seek to become not only an economic power, but a "moral inspiration" as well in a very thinly veiled attack on China's human rights record. David Cameron pulled faces throughout John's address and Jeremy Corbyn did that thing where the breaks the fourth wall by looking directly at the camera. John, as is apparently the new norm, continued to not give a fuck, even going to far as to refuse to wear headphones for the Xi's speech which was not given in English.

He also said he'd block any application by the Prime Minister to let Donald Trump speak in Parliament which is apparently a thing he can do. This annoyed a lot of people - most notably Norman Fowler, Lords Speaker who should have been informed of John's decision before he went public - but John continued to not give a fuck about anything anymore. Lots of people loved him for his comments about Trump.

Expenses

Despite being elected on a reforming platform after the Expenses Scandal, John has never really shied away from charging what the TaxPayers Alliance would call "good, hardworking, honest people" for things that others generally find a bit over the top. After becoming Speaker, for example, he charged over £20,000 to refurbish Speaker's apartment in the Houses of Parliament to make it fit for his children. Charging the taxpayer to make the windows child-friendly (John being one of the very few Speakers to have small children living in the Palace of Westminster) was seen as a generally acceptable claim, but charging for larger TVs and repainting rooms was not looked upon favourably. Further expenses claims for food and drink and washing machines were also viewed negatively until it came to light that he spent £172 on a journey of less than a mile from his home in Westminster and put it on expenses and everyone forgot about the other claims because WTF, John?!

He also got into a spot of bother regarding his official portrait. Not only did it cost a lot of money and was paid for during a period of austerity, but John just had to be different. Rather than his portrait being a traditional shot of him posing in his full robes, John decided to make his an action shot of him busy working. This caused a lot of criticism because if it was good enough for everyone else, why did John have to be different. Many speculated it was because it made him look taller than a traditional portrait would. Whatever the reason, he liked it as did a few others.

Full List of Appointments
• Special Adviser to the Chief Secretary to the Treasury (1995)
• Special Adviser to the Secretary of State for National Heritage (1995)
• Spokesman for Education and Employment (June 1999 - July 2000)
• Spokesman for Home Affairs (July 2000 - September 2001)
• Shadow Chief Secretary to the Treasury (September 2001 - July 2002)
• Shadow Minister for Work and Pensions (July 2002 – November 2002)
• Shadow Secretary of State for International Development (November 2003 - September 2004)
• Speaker of the House of Commons (2009-present)

Personal Life

An ex-classmate of Bercow's says she is "continually astonished he got married and had three children".

All the little Bercows, all lined up.

John and Sally started dating when they were both members of the Conservative Students. In actual fact, it was John's best friend Julian Lewis was first spotted Sally and was intending to ask her out himself. When he came back to the bar later in the evening to buy Sally a drink, he spotted John already deep in conversation with her and did the gentlemanly thing and left them to it. In order to prove that he was worth her time, Sally made John talk about spiral staircases for five minutes to see if he could keep her engaged. John, who had previously been known as the "Pocket Cicero" had no trouble going on for more than fifteen minutes. The two dated on and off for years before finally getting married in parliament in 2002.

John's Wimbledon feels

They have three children together, the eldest of whom (Oliver) is autistic. It was through learning this about their son that both John and Sally became involved in the charity Ambitious About Autism. They are both parent-patrons of the charity.

Sally once petitioned the Twittersphere to name their cat, thus resulting in the Speaker of the HoC having a pet named "Order". She also confirmed via twitter that John is a big fan of David Bowie, particularly during his Ziggy Stardust phase.

Their marriage has been on the rocks lately thanks to Sally's dislike of living in the Westminster fishbowl and her general lack of self-control. Their problems hit crisis-point when she slept with his cousin Alan (they bonded over a shared love of red wine after John introduced them during an attempt to mend a family feud), but after a brief period of separation they got back together.

In his spare time John likes to play and watch tennis. He even wrote a book about tennis. Pictures of him watching Wimbleton are quite entertaining, as he can get rather emotional. His favourite tennis player is Roger Federer - in 2014 John watched Federer play 65 times (out of the 85 professional games Federer played that year) which was more than Federer's own mother had seen. John and his office refused to say whether John was just referring to staying up late and watching Federer on TV or if John actually travelled around the world to watch the tennis player on court live. John even got to interview his "hero" Federer, who he described as “the greatest tennis player I’ve ever seen in my life”, as guest editor of Radio 4 in 2014 with the program being broadcast on boxing day. Federer was very kind and made things a lot less awkward than they would otherwise have been with all of John's obsessive fanboying.

Sexuality

Screencap from SexyMp.co.uk listing John Bercow as "Bi-Curious"

The problem with John Bercow is that he discovered sex and New Labour at the same time.~ A Shadow Cabinet Minister in 2009

John has publicly stated in the House of Commons that he "happens to be heterosexual". However, evidence of his latent bi-curiosity came to light when SexyMp.co.uk listed his affiliation as "Bi-Curious".

According to biographical sources, regardless of his sexuality, he is completely clueless when it comes to romance. "Bercow's love life was a pretty abject failure... He did have one or two encounters with women, but there was nothing that lasted".

Appearance

At 5'6", John is often the butt of short jokes. For example, when Tory MP Simon Burns reversed his car into the Speaker's, Bercow informed him "I am not happy!" to which Burns replied "Well which one are you, then?". This joke has been retold a number of times by David Cameron since he cannot stand Bercow and generally likes humiliating him. References to the Seven Dwarves are a common theme in jokes about Bercow's height because MPs and hacks are nothing if not original in their bullying.

In addition to being incredibly short and having terrible skin, John Bercow is known for his interesting sartorial sense in particular his choice in ties. He was also heavily criticised in the media as well as by previous Speakers for forgoing the traditional dress upon taking up the job and instead choosing to wear a simple suit with a robe over the top.

Bercow being very excited about a tie.

Ideology

John Bercow's fabulous Coat of Arms, which proves he has the right values but no design sense.

A former rabid right-winger and head of the Monday Club's Immigration and Repatriation "study group" (policy committee to the rest of us), Bercow's political ideas moved slowly leftward until he became Speaker whereupon he is not allowed to hold any views on anything ever. He used to hang out with people who wore "Hang Nelson Mandela" t-shirts but claims that he personally never wore one.

One of the most notable shifts in John's changing beliefs is in the realms of LGBT rights. As well as voting in favour of a number of pieces of legislation which extended rights for same-sex couples, John also heads charities who focus on LGBT issues. Unfortunately he was Speaker during the time that the same-sex marriage Act passed but someone was nice enough to leave him a token flower that supporters of the legislation wore during the debate.

Portrayal

In the Media

He appeared on Crackerjack as a small child and in 1981 was mean to Barbara Castle on Question Time.

No one really likes Bercow enough to reference him in anything. He was involved in the Michael Cockerell documentary about the House of Commons but that's about it.

In Fanon

Bercow is usually portrayed as a wizard, charged with keeping magical order throughout the land.

Meme

John Bercow often appears in a role similar to his Speaker duties - either as Speaker itself or for example as a teacher in a school!AU. He is generally portrayed as verbose and occasionally magical.

Shipping

As well as being shipped with his canon spouse Sally Bercow, John is popularly paired with Chris Bryant (Brycow), Michael Gove and Peter Mandelson (Mandelberc).

The RP

John is a wizard in the RP. He spends most of his time eating biscuits, and getting drunk with Peter Mandelson rather than protecting Parliament from the Machine Peter created and which lives under the parliamentary estate. John was briefly Peter's legal owner when Peter was struck down with lycanthropy. He helped to cure Chris Bryant when the Labour MP kept turning into a swan.