John Bercow Quotes

#1. Even youngish men can acquire wisdom as time goes by.

John Bercow

#2. I think the state opening of Parliament is an incredibly important occasion, and broadly speaking, the way in which it's done is an invaluable tradition.

John Bercow

#3. There are people who are just very, very sniffy and snobby and have always sort of looked down their noses at me.

John Bercow

#4. I'm not in the business of warning people.

John Bercow

#5. Lying to a committee is a very grave abuse, and there ought to be a clear punishment.

John Bercow

#6. It is quite wrong for party conferences to be used as an excuse for the Commons not to sit. Conferences could be held at weekends.

John Bercow

#7. One consistent thing in an otherwise inconsistent career is that I've always been passionate about parliament.

John Bercow

#8. I never aspired to be Speaker simply so I could say, 'I am the Speaker of the House of Commons,' and tell my children that.

John Bercow

#9. The Conservatives must realise that being sceptical is different from being phobic in what is an interdependent world.

John Bercow

#10. I'm not psychic. I cannot know what is in the mind of particular public figures.

John Bercow

#11. Fairness is not about statistical equality.

John Bercow

#12. It's a cowardly form of politics to use my spouse to beat me.

John Bercow

#13. I don't think that people are disinterested or uninterested in politics. I think very often they are disengaged from the formal political process. To some extent they are suspicious or even despairing of formal politics as a means to give expression and effect to what they want.

John Bercow

#14. I was proud to be a Tory Member of Parliament for twelve years, proud to represent Buckingham as a Tory, proud to have voted with my party 99% of the time as the record shows.

John Bercow

#15. I'm supremely uninterested as to what is written in many of the newspapers.

John Bercow

#16. For far too long the House of Commons has been run as little more than a private club by and for gentleman amateurs.

John Bercow

#17. I've never been much given to little social cliques.

John Bercow

#18. A legislature cannot be effective while suffering from public scorn.

John Bercow

#19. I said that if I hadn't been a politician, I'd have liked to be a barrister, or an academic. My beloved wife said: 'You'd be a very good barrister and a hopeless academic.' I said 'Why?' She said: 'Because you're not an original thinker.'

John Bercow

#20. I think the record shows that as Speaker, I have taken the lead in cleaning up politics.

John Bercow

#21. I do strongly believe myself that members of the government who sit in the House of Lords should be accountable to the elected House because otherwise there is a democratic deficit, and that is wrong.

John Bercow

#22. I am seeking every day to restore faith in Parliament - to ensure we have a House of Commons which is representative, effective and reconnected to the people we serve.

John Bercow

#23. There's no point in worrying about things you can't influence.

John Bercow

#24. The prime minister's job is to captain his team, his party and his government.

John Bercow

#25. I don't want to crawl over the entrails of past disputes.

John Bercow

#26. I pride myself on being courteous to people, and trying to fashion good relations.

John Bercow

#27. There is no denying or hiding the fact that over the years I moved from well on the right of the Conservative Party, much much more to its left, and therefore to the centre of the poltical spectrum.

John Bercow

#28. If you asked me if I'd rather be Speaker or a very senior minister, I'd say Speaker.

John Bercow

#29. If someone is being very cheeky, it can be quite fun to deal with that situation.

John Bercow

#30. Sally is my wife, but not my chattel or my property.

John Bercow

#31. When I first started out in politics I was, what you might describe as, a hard right Conservative.

John Bercow

#32. Possibly the fact that I was physically quite feeble, a relatively short little fellow, attracted me to that idea of a very authoritative and aggressive version of Conservative politics.

John Bercow