Bercow: not one of us

There are some mutterings among my colleagues as to whether John Bercow was a proper Conservative or not. The case against him is quite compelling: supporting disabled children, gay rights, democracy in Burma - these are far from normal Conservative interests. But this is not the whole story. In his defence, he is prone to correcting people's grammar under his breath as they speak.

Of course it would have been preferable to have a Tory establishment speaker like George Young, but this is not the time to undermine the new speaker. No that time is a year or so away.

Many colleagues did not vote for Bercow for no other reason than that he did not have support on both sides of the house. Or is it that he did not have support on both sides of the house because many of my colleagues didn't vote for him. I'm getting a little confused here.

Nevertheless, we have a "clean break" reforming speaker in place, and that is something we are all going to have to keep an eye and a lid on.

I love it - not so much.