Bercow: the new Speaker

Hard to believe that the first Tory Speaker of the Commons since 1992 is giving the Tories a fit of rage.

We said it before. To look at it, the expression 'all ring and no doughnut' was created to describe the Speaker of the House of Common. Beneath all the tradition, prestige, pomp and pageantry, it's a post that carries little clout. Most people don't even know what a Speaker does.

Nevertheless, if the Daily Mail and its attack dog Quentin 'Gorgeous' Letts are frothing with anger at the election of John Bercow MP, then it's a sure indication that the bloke can't be that bad.

The Fear Gazette's beef with Bercow stems from the fact that he is from the so-called 'Tory left', so much that he is fairly respected by many of his opponents. Back in the darkest days of when the Conservative Party was still holding medieval views on sexuality (only at the beginning of this decade), Bercow was one of the few to contravene the party line on the Age of Consent and the abolition of the obnoxious Section 28.

So bring on the insults. "Preening careerist", blasts Edward Heathcoat Amory. "They voted for someone worse than Gorbals Mick!", barks Quentin "Once-We-Had-An-Empire" Letts. "It's a two fingers salute!" write Chapman and Walker. And the self-perpetrating exercise in political futility continues...