On the tube yesterday I was reading the Standard I found the piece on Mrs Speaker (Sally Bercow). She, in this fantastic show of PR, tells the new free Standard that she was a drinker, shagger and all round lady of the night. I quote from the papper "Mrs Bercow confessed to casual sexual encounters fuelled by alcohol. "Someone would send a drink over and I'd think, why not, and we'd go home together." Mrs Speaker is, as you will know, a Labour hack she running for council and wishing to run for parliament. She left the Conservatives in the 90's.She has a dig at DC by saying he's a "an archetypal Tory". I can see why her and Mr Speaker don't like the Liberal Conservative leader as her and her husband are not Conservatives but fer leftightsie, big goverment types.
Mr Speaker was (as Donal Blarney writes) Secretary of its Immigration and Repatriation Committee for the Conservative Monday Club. For those of you who don't know about the Conservative Monday Club the only thing Conservative about the club is the word Conservative. Around the time Mr Speaker was the Conservative Monday Club's Secretary of its Immigration and Repatriation Committee the club left its Conservative links behind and became a anti-immigration club who made "distasteful" racist remarks. The group at the time of Mr Speaker had strong links with the National Front and today it's more of a BNP group than a Conservative group.
Mr Speaker meet his wife when he was chair, and she a member, of the Federation of Conservative Students. This is a group who was disbanded by Norman Tebbit. It has a strong non conservative authoritarians views. Like: nationalism, an isolationist posture, opposition to immigration, scepticism about liberal economics, all there view are not conservative but a lefty. The Aberystwyth Uni branch would go out in Springbok jerseys (during apartheid), racially abused ethnic minoritys and organised a night out in Aberystwyth town centre to celebrate the anniversary of Hitler's rise to power in Germany. Famously the leading national members would wear "Hang Nelson Mandela" T-shirts.
Mrs Speaker left the party and wen't over to Labour where she is now. It is said that Mr Speaker would of gone too but at the time he was going up the greasy pole as he was a Conservative councillor and Parliamentary candidate. He never fitted in with the Party and the Parties views and when the Party adopted a Liberal Conservative leader he almost fled with Quentin Davies to the Labour Party. He did not as he knew that the next Speaker would have to be a Conservative and he was going all the way to the top of the greasy pole.
Labour got him in as Speaker not becose he was a saint of expense scandal but becose he was one of there own. Far from being a saint he was top of league table of highest-claiming members of the House of Commons for almost all years he been in HoC and in most years he was in the top 3 highest-claiming members and joint first position on one year. He is guilty of fraud by flipping his second home.
His short time as Speaker there has been no real reform and he has spent £45,581.00 of taxpayers money refurbishing his apartment even after the last Mr Speaker spent £70,000.00 on refurbishing it.
Like Mr Speaker's Monday Club the only thing this former Conservative MP has in common with the Conservative Party is the name. His beliefs are from the left and his big government, isolationist, anti-liberal economics believes have more in common with his freand (who voted him as speaker) in the Labour Party than Conservatives and when the General Election comes about he be up against with some one who more in common with the Conservatives than he dose. Tory Banter will be watching with interest and hope.
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By the way, the comparible figure for last speaker spent £1,700,000 on his house, not £70,000.
£700,000 of that figure was spent on furnishings and improving the residence, as opposed to the £20,000 spent by Bercow to make the house child-friendly and to remove the decor which was disturbing the children and £20,000 ordered by the House authorities for general maintenance. This was all in the telegraph a few weeks ago.
And you'd be surprised how expensive things get in Grade 1 Listed UNESCO World Heritage Sites.
Personally, I don't begrudge a bit of money to make the flat habital by children, or a bit of redecoration for the sake of an autistic child.
And I find your repudiation of all the groups which undoubtedly were Conservative very odd - you seem to be rewriting history for the sake of a vendetta vs the Speaker. I know many of their views weren't in tow with the Thatcherite ideology which the Conservative Party adopted in the 1980s, but the point is that the Conservative Party has always been a broad church, and the ideological purity you seem to be advocating I think would be rather damaging to the party.
First it was not £20,000. That was what he told us it would cost but as a cheat as he is, it cost £45,581. I don't think Mr Anony, that all of the £45,581 spent on the house was to make it child friendly for an autistic child. It would not cost £45,581 especially after the last speaker spent (as you say) £70,000.00 on furnishings. I also don't think that a new, bigger television, redecoration and a DVD player is for child safety.
Second Mr Speaker and I guess your self are not Conservatives. I do agree that the party is a broad church from the Liberal conservatism, Classical Liberalism, One Nation Conservatism, Social Conservatism,High Toryism ETC, but this wired strain of authoritarian of big government, isolationist believes are not Conservative. All Conservative are united with the same values of limited government, freedom, sound taxation, personal responsibility, the union and national pride. The authoritarian belief in the union and national pride are the only thing which they (and Labour)share with the Party. You say that I was rewriting history but I have only giving facts in this post. Sorry the Monday Club is just not Conservative or even right wing.
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