‘Smug, arrogant and hypocritical … no, not Donald Trump, John Bercow’, says talkRADIO host Julia Hartley-Brewer
IT is the ultimate battle of egos.
Commons Speaker John Bercow has launched a war of words against the most powerful man in the world, the President of the United States.
On one side, we have a pompous, arrogant egomaniac who desperately craves attention and wants to strut on the world stage, handing out executive orders like a tin-pot dictator.
And on the other, we have Donald Trump.
Because make no mistake about it, when it comes to self-importance, Trump has finally met his match in the diminutive figure of John Bercow.
Never in the history of our Parliament has it been led by a man with more arrogance, smugness and hypocrisy than Speaker Bercow.
With breathtaking self-importance, just weeks after President Trump was invited on a State Visit to Britain as the guest of the Queen, Speaker Bercow has taken it upon himself to tell the world he would be “strongly opposed” to the President addressing the Houses of Parliament during his visit.
Why? Well, as he pompously explained to MPs, his “opposition to racism and sexism” were “hugely important considerations”.
Never mind that the Speaker doesn’t get to decide alone who addresses Parliament.
Never mind that Bercow has tried to dictate British foreign policy and publicly insulted the leader of our strongest ally.
Grandstanding by a political pygmy
The truth is that Bercow isn’t a hero of our time, standing up for the poor, huddled masses. This wasn’t about Doing The Right Thing.
This was nothing but pathetic grandstanding by a political pygmy who has given up on having any chance of climbing higher up the greasy pole.
John Bercow has dismally failed at the most fundamental job of the Speaker, which is to be scrupulously politically neutral.
Despite being a former Tory MP, he has long been despised by many of his Conservative colleagues.
Labour MPs only voted him into the job in 2009 to mischievously put two fingers up to the Tories.
No wonder so many MPs on all sides — some publicly, but many more in private — now want him to leave the Speaker’s chair.
They know Bercow is just a hypocritical self-publicist who is happy to kneel at the virtue-signalling altar in return for a few minutes of publicity on the 6pm news — and a smattering of applause from sycophantic Labour and SNP MPs.
Where, after all, were Bercow’s oh-so-deeply-held convictions about not welcoming unsavoury characters to Parliament when he happily kowtowed to Xi Jinping and proudly introduced the Chinese President’s speech to MPs and peers in 2015?
Last time I looked, President Trump (whether we like it or not) was elected to office in a free and fair democratic election, while President Xi is the leader of a one-party totalitarian state that locks up political opponents.
Where were Bercow’s morals when he enjoyed tea and biscuits with North Korean dignitaries in 2011 and, in 2009, when he played host to a senior figure in the Vietnamese regime?
Again, both are one-party totalitarian states that deny the most basic freedoms to their people.
And where was all that righteous indignation when the Speaker said he was “very pleased indeed” to welcome the president of Indonesia in 2016, despite that country’s dismal human rights record?