No 10 has gone in with its studs up on John Bercow. Quizzed on an outburst by the Speaker in which he allegedly called Andrea Leadsom a “stupid woman”, Theresa May’s spokesman said the remarks were “unacceptable” and called for a full investigation should a complaint be made. It is an unprecedentedly hostile intervention and amounts, in effect, to a declaration of war on the Speaker’s office.
I wrote yesterday that, in the wake of the decision of Parliament’s standards committee not to launch an investigation into historic bullying allegations against Bercow, it would take a new and substantive controversy for the campaign to oust the Speaker to have any hope of succeeding. Could this incident, which has not been denied by Bercow, be it?
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