Feuds and grudges
Nearly a year after his election to the Chair, it seems Mr Speaker Bercow still has irreconcilable enemies among Tory MPs. He wisely failed to hear the calling him a "stupid, sanctimonious dwarf" during health questions yesterday - the offending remark wasn't picked up by the Commons sound system, but was reported everywhere.
Today it resurfaced, to titters, when Labour's Chris Bryant inquired innocently, on a point of order, whether Mr Speaker was worried about being "short with ministers". Mr Bercow replied that he'd "always been short".
Tee-hee. Lots of Conservatives regard Mr Bercow as an apostate, who openly flirted with Labour to win the Chair - and he's treated with much disdain by those critics. But there's a particular history between Mr Burns and Mr Bercow -
That stung and has clearly not been forgiven. Before that Mr Burns was the Conservative whip charged with looking after Mr Bercow, and it is safe to say their hearts didn't beat as one. Perhaps it was he Mr Bercow has in mind, when he quipped that he had always had a relationship of trust and respect with his whips - they didn't trust him and he didn't respect them.
Mr Burns, a Conservative colleague tells me, has a reputation for "flamboyant feuding" but adds that no-one should read anything more into the incident. Certainly in the last Parliament many Conservatives began to feel and demonstrate outright contempt for Mr Speaker Martin, to the point where earning a rebuke from him was a badge of honour. As yet, Mr Bercow isn't attracting that level of derision.
In fact, having survived Nigel Farage's UKIP challenge in his Buckingham seat, and then Nadine Dorries abortive attempt to stymie his re-election as Speaker, he's been a bit more genial and a bit less waspish. His rebukes are honeyed with references to their object being "senior and experienced parliamentarians" and so forth, and his supporters have ceased to fear that he would irritate so many MPs he would become a lame-duck Speaker.
UPDATE: Mr Burns has now apologised...to people who suffer from primordial dwarfism. In a short statement issued this afternoon, he said: "If I have caused any offence to any group of people then I unreservedly apologise because that was not my intention."
His insult had been branded "derogatory and deeply offensive" by the charity the
So far no apology to the stupid and sanctimonious community has been forthcoming.
I'm Mark D'Arcy and I'll be writing about what goes on in the chambers and committee rooms at Westminster.
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