John Bercow: Little man, big ego – and too much to say

And yet he does.

Whether it’s opposing a visit by the President of the United States or bemoaning Brexit, John Bercow can’t stop himself pouring forth.

It’s against the rules, of course. Someone in his esteemed role is supposed to be impartial.

But rules mean little to this little man with a big ego and a puffed-up importance of himself.

He won’t take questions from the Express & Star, though. Predictably, we’re beneath him, along with most of the press beyond the M25.

He doesn’t do interviews when he’s out on these visits, luvvie, I’m told by his personal press officer.

So it’s strange to hear him tell a Wolverhampton audience how much he wants to ‘engage with people, particularly the young’.

Maybe it’s my silver (Grey - Ed) locks that put him off then.

He is as outspoken as they come on the issue of politicians being detached from the public, and his desire to ‘end the days when MPs are incarcerated in Westminster’.

But with all due respect to the crowd at the University of Wolverhampton, it is easy for a politician to ‘talk the talk’ when his views go unchallenged.

Of course, there are those who believe that with the prestigious role of Speaker should come a reluctance to express personal views.

Once appointed to the role, the MP in question is required to withdraw any party affiliation and should be totally impartial, at least in public.

Yet despite his protestations to the contrary, former Tory Bercow - decked out tonight in a blue suit and a multi-coloured ‘I’m a funny guy, honestly’ tie - cares little for such convention.

He appears to thrive on making himself the centre of the story.

“I’d like to be an ambassador for Parliament,” he says, before opining that under no circumstances should the Great British public be allowed a vote on any major decisions.

Leave that to the big boys and girls in the Commons, eh John?

He says what he thinks, although technically he is not really supposed to.

It is precisely this ego-driven yearning for publicity that turns so many people off Bercow. Then there’s his insistence on jumping on the back of every politically correct bandwagon that crosses his path.

The Q&A session that followed his address at the university provided a case in point.

As Professor Ian Oakes introduced the evening’s fourth and final questioner, Bercow rather rudely interrupted him to blurt out: “My only slight upset is that we haven’t had a single question from a female member of the audience.”

Thankfully his snowflake sensibilities were satiated when a woman was drafted in to ask a hastily arranged question number five.

In Bercow’s defence, he has done some good things since he first landed the role of Speaker in 2009. He crows about his successful efforts to drastically increase the number of urgent questions asked in the Commons, and his work as chair of the UK Youth Parliament deserves recognition.

His visit to Wolverhampton, as a guest of the affable former Labour MP Rob Marris, came about through his interest in the university’s groundbreaking work on brain tumour research.

Just occasionally, he even drops his guard to poke fun at himself, such as his claim that contrary to popular belief he is not the shortest Speaker in history.

“Three others were shorter,” he said - but only after they had been beheaded.

It was rather fitting that Bercow’s visit came in a week where the political allegiances of many of this country’s university professors were called into question.

In busy-body Bercow, the growing band of politically correct do-gooders have a champion they can be proud of.

Bercow said that people have become disillusioned by politics and the way the system operates.

He is one of the main reasons why.