Commons Speaker John Bercow was facing fresh questions about his impartiality last night – after his wife urged him to be lenient with the disgraced former minister Phil Woolas. ( nella foto)
In an astonishing public intervention Sally Bercow urged her husband not to act in haste against the shamed Labour MP, who was booted out of Parliament and the Labour Party last week for spreading lies about his main opponent at the General Election.
Mr Bercow is due to rule tomorrow on when the by-election to replace Mr Woolas should take place. An immediate by-election would drive another nail into the coffin of the former immigration minister’s political career.
Sally Bercow has urged her husband, the Commons Speaker, to delay a new poll to give Phil Woolas time to clear his name – even though voters of Oldham East and Saddleworth would be without an MP for months
But Mrs Bercow, a former Labour candidate, today urged her husband to delay a new poll to give Mr Woolas time to clear his name – even though this would leave the voters of Oldham East and Saddleworth without an MP for months.
Asked about the delicate decision her husband has to make, she said: ‘I would like him to hold off until Phil Woolas has had a chance to have his judicial review.’
The Tories and Liberal Democrats are pressing for the by-election to be called immediately.
One Tory MP today described Mrs Bercow’s intervention as ‘bizarre and damaging’, adding: ‘How can the Speaker not face a conflict of interest when his wife is pressing so hard to protect a Labour colleague?’
Mrs Bercow, an outspoken Labour supporter, said Mr Woolas ‘hasn’t committed any criminal offences at all’.
She claimed his actions, which led to him being barred from standing in elections for three years, amounted to no more than ‘sharp practice’.
In a separate message on the social networking site Twitter she said she was ‘absolutely gutted’ by the court ruling against Mr Woolas, adding: ‘I hope he stands and I hope he wins.’
Mrs Bercow claimed Mr Woolas's actions, which led to him being barred from standing in elections for three years, amounted to no more than ¿sharp practice¿
Mrs Bercow’s latest outburst is the latest in a series of highly political interventions which have raised concerns about the traditional impartiality of the Speaker’s office.
Although Mr Bercow was originally a Tory MP many on the Conservative benches believe he is now a Labour sympathiser.
He won his current position largely on the back of Labour votes.
In one instance in September, Mrs Bercow suggested that her husband’s granting of a Commons debate on the phone hacking allegations surrounding David Cameron’s chief spin doctor Andy Coulson would ‘surely’ mean he had to quit to ‘spend more time with his family’.
Former Labour candidate Sally Bercow (left) had publicly backed Phil Woolas, and said: '[He] hasn't committed any criminal offences at all.'
In the same month she joined the chorus of secularist attacks on the Pope as her husband prepared to welcome him to Parliament.
Earlier this year she suggested her husband should rule Mr Osborne’s emergency Budget ‘out of order’ because she believed the UK was not facing an emergency.
Mr Bercow has insisted that his wife is entitled to her own views.
But critics claim her increasingly partisan attacks raise questions about the Speaker’s ability to remain impartial.
The election result in Oldham and Saddleworth was declared void on Friday after two judges ruled that Mr Woolas had spread damaging lies about his Liberal Democrat opponent Elwyn Watkins in the run-up to the general election.
Mr Woolas, 50, falsely claimed that Mr Watkins was pandering to violent Muslim extremists – an explosive claim in an area that the scene of race riots less than a decade ago. A leaflet claimed his opponent had made a ‘pact with the Devil’.
Mr Woolas said he would be seeking a judicial review of the ruling, which was the first of its kind by an election court for almost a century. He is now seeking to raise £200,000 to fight the case.
But his prospects looked bleak yesterday after Labour’s deputy leader Harriet Harman confirmed the party would not fund his appeal.
Miss Harman also indicated that he would not be allowed back into the Labour Party even if a judicial review finds the election court acted beyond its powers in stripping him of his seat.
Asked about the possibility of a successful appeal, she said: ‘Well it won't change the facts that are found by the election court, which was that he said things that were untrue, knowing it.
And that is what we are taking action on because it's no part of Labour's politics for somebody to be telling lies to get themselves elected.’
Rif: https://archivio.politicamentecorretto.com/index.php?news=30235
