The significance of Mr Speaker's re-election
The British constitution is, as we know, a strange beast. It is uncodified but it is also largely unwritten, operating on nods, winks and half-remembering how we did this last time. Evidently, the incumbent Speaker has been re-elected for 175 years; what, then, has changed with Mr Speaker Bercow?
In short, it isn’t anything to do with his actions in the chair. There are grumblings from all sides about him being insufficiently unbiased, which I regard as being par for the course. Rather, it is because certain members – not least Nadine Dorries – dislike him because of his move towards the centre over recent years and that he was elected because of Labour’s support with a perceived desire to stick it to the Tories.
That may or may not be true, but so far as I can tell he has not been biased in his chairing. As the Speaker must be an MP, they will always have a party political past. The mystique comes from them rising above party politics, to the extent of their seat being uncontested. As none of the people contesting Mr Bercow’s Buckingham seat came close to winning (Mr Bercow has a majority of over 12,000, David Cameron ordered the local party to toe the line and the UKIP candidate came in third), there is no challenge there.
No, the challenge comes from within Parliament. It is much easier to break the spell than to make it; indeed, it may be impossible to remake it. Given the nature of our Constitution, that strikes me as quite an un-conservative thing to do.
By breaking the spell, the Speaker and future Speakers may now feel more at ease in defending their record; indeed, if there was an election despite a sitting Speaker, it would not be unreasonable for the incumbent to talk to their record. Given the last election for Speaker saw people standing on platforms, it is not hard to see the Speakership becoming more political. I don’t think that is a good thing, and I don’t think Ms Dorries would see it as a good thing either.
As I said, our constitution operates on nods and winks and I feel the debate around Mr Speaker’s re-election is symptomatic of broader constitutional issues. Too often, it feels that the immutability of precedent is in fact very mutable and is dependent on the interpretation of a few high priests – and, yes, I’m thinking of Vernon Bogdanor. Here’s the rub; if the operation of the constitution is dependent on acceptance of unwritten norms that are increasingly being challenged, it becomes relatively easy to tinker with the constitution without anyone’s approval, without anyone’s consideration or even without anyone’s noticing.
More at Conservative Home and New Statesman.
xD.
May 19th, 2010 at 4:29 pm
Mustn’t be rude about Prof Bogdanor. He is much better than Lord Blake or Norman St John Stevas, who always used to be trotted out as constitutional experts.
Also the columnist Alan Watkins was always very good at this sort of thing. It’s a great pity he died the other week.
Have you noticed how the most venerated “traditions” usually turn out to have been invented rather recently?