Poor Labour...they don’t deserve Bercow’s stunt
INEVER thought I’d say this, but poor, poor Labour. What did they do to deserve this? That pipsqueak John Bercow has just crossed the floor to the opposition, an account of wanton cruelty to a movement already in its death throes. Haven’t they suffered enough?
And he did so, it seems, in the hopes they would help him bag a peerage.
In an exceptionally rare moment of common sense from Labour, it has said “not a chance”.
Who would you pay not to defect to your party? Or indeed any group of people to whom you belong?
There was a time a while back when the gay movement was just coming into its own (and all power to its elbow, incidentally) when the suggestion was made that Hitler was a latent homosexual and his brutality and cruelty in later life was a reaction to his inner anguish.
Never have you seen a group of people act so fast to disassociate themselves from anyone.
Was Shakespeare gay? Almost certainly a little bit. Leonardo and Michelangelo? Yup: ship it in. Alexander the Great? You said it, baby. Adolf? Not in my name, my backyard, my porch, how dare you make such an offensive suggestion…you get the drift.
It’s not for nothing that organisations such as the Freemasons make it really quite difficult to join their ranks.
You can bet that the high-ups at Labour were wishing they could make John Bercow undergo strange rituals and learn silly handshakes; that would have kept the likes of him out. (Freemasons, please do not write in: I am very pro you and I’m joking.)
And anyway, there’s a malicious pleasure to it. Private members clubs enjoy blackballing people far more than they enjoy admitting them: the list of people blackballed by the Garrick is so long it even includes half the population, namely women.
They only do it to annoy because they know it teases, but that doesn’t stop various women from mounting legal challenges against them, which of course only delights the Garrick even more. I bet Labour wishes it could blackball John Bercow. Nor is this the first time it has happened to them.
Not every Blairite grandee will have been totally delighted when Shaun Woodward crossed the floor from the Tories to the red corner and ditto Robert Jackson, not that anyone remembers him now.
Quentin Davies was another who walked towards Blair in 2007 – he must have spent the last 11 years watching Tories running the country and wondering if it was all worth it.
Nor did all these defections shore Labour up. And if any in their number thinks that the arrival of Bercow heralds great things, I’m afraid they’ve got another think coming.
Face it: we’re all part of a tribe of some description, be it political, sexual, clubland, Freemasonland or wherever – and we don’t always want newcomers in our midst. There have been many reports recently of the unfriendliness of natives of Cornwall towards incomers (please don’t write in) because while Cornwall might be one of the poorest areas of the country, it is also one of the most attractive and the locals understandably don’t want townies moving in, pushing up house prices and behaving as if they own the place.
AND so the good folk of Labour – already in despair at the fact that their party is walking at great speed into a great big brick wall that no one seems to understand how to avoid – are not exactly going to be delighted that their latest incomer is one of the biggest narcissists and charlatans in British politics. He brings to mind an old joke about a politician talking: “But that’s enough about me. Let’s talk about you. What do you think about me?”
I bet John Bercow is already feeling like one of those incomers to Cornwall.
But at least they have beautiful beaches to look at. In the Commons, it’s just a socially distanced echoing chamber, where almost everyone hates him already. It’s almost enough to make you feel sorry for him.Almost.