John Bercow, the Speaker of the House of Commons, today told the House that his new deputy speakers should be elected by MPs.

From the BBC:

In a statement, he told MPs he wanted two deputy speakers from the government side and one from the opposition side.

He is believed to be concerned that following his own election by secret ballot last month the three deputies should also be elected.

Mr Bercow indicated he had consulted party whips, who normally appoint the deputy speakers, about the plan.

It is thought that Mr Bercow is looking to implement the changes – or

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Apologies, dear reader, but I’ve been busy at work rather than watching Prime Minister’s Questions (so that you don’t have to). I will catch up with it later, but I have read the Hansard transcript. And if today’s PMQs is remembered for anything, I suspect it will be for this quite sublime Prime Ministerial line:

… total spending will continue to rise, and it will be a zero per cent. rise in 2013–14.

Yes, you read that right: 0% counts as a rise in total spending in Gordon Brown’s eyes. The Evening Standard’s Paul Waugh (admittedly not a Labour cheerleader) sums up his performance today:

It was worse than that: it was bad in an inept, jaded, so-grey-I-make-John-Major-look-colourful kinda way. This was a man with the stench of decay around him.

Don’t forget that the economy and figures are supposed to be Brown’s strong suit. If he turns in a performance like this, it suggests that the only real reason for keeping him – namely a possible economic recovery for which he will claim credit – is disappearing fast.

If I were a Labour backbencher watching today, I would have my head in my hands.

That’s certainly how it read.

When Nick Clegg’s turn came, he also asked about public spending, linking the issue (in his supplementary) to his newly-adopted policy of scrapping the Trident nuclear weapons system. It was in his first question, though, that I think Nick did best, skewering the tortured efforts of both the Labour and Tory parties to avoid levelling with the British public how they will respond to the economics of recession. Full Hansard transcript of Nick’s exchanges with Gordon follow:

There was a fair amount of mockery of the Government a couple of months ago when it was revealed that Labour’s flagship Mortgage Rescue Scheme, launched last autumn, had helped only one family up to the end of April.^

I said then that these things take time, Rome wasn’t built in a day etc. How prophetic, for today we discover that the figure of families helped by the Mortgage Rescue Scheme has rocketed … to six. Or 6 if you prefer. To be fair, that’s a 600% increase. On the debit side, the original intention was to help 6,000 families facing repossession.

Here’s what Our Vince had to say about it:

Helping just six families is absolutely pitiful and doesn’t even begin to address the scale of the problem. Vast reams of red tape stand in the way of families faced with repossession staying in their own homes. There are enormous time lags and the vast majority of people who think they are eligible find that they are not.

“Repossession is a ticking time bomb. Despite the predictions of a modest fall, the numbers of repossessions are likely to soar in the next two years because of rising unemployment. Temporary Government schemes are deferring the problem, not solving it. If interest rates start to rise next year, the problem will become even more severe.”

Vince was today leading a debate in Westminster Hall on this very issue of mortgage arrears and repossessions – you can read the Hansard transcript HERE. Here’s his conslusion:

Repossession is only really a problem because of the underlying lack of available housing, particularly social housing. If social housing was freely available, repossession would not be the tragedy and disaster it currently is. Are the Government, working with the charitable bodies, doing any research at the moment on what happens to people who become repossessed? I do not think that any of us know where those people actually go, although anecdotal evidence suggests that most of them go into the private rented sector, which of course presents problems of its own. Many people go into the private rented sector because they can then get housing benefit, which they found more difficult to get as owner-occupiers, but many of them are still in considerable difficulty.

There is still an issue about how to ensure greater availability of affordable housing in the long term.

Gordon Brown yesterday set out his policy plans for the next year, with headline proposals including:

Here’s the Hansard transcript of how Nick Clegg responded for the Lib Dems:

Mr. Nick Clegg (Sheffield, Hallam) (LD): The Prime Minister and the leader of the Conservatives have just perfected their fake debate on public spending, yet both are treating voters as if they are children, too young to know the truth. This morning, the Government have reneged on their promise to hold a comprehensive spending review before the next election, and the Conservatives are not going to decide on their cuts until the day after it. Neither is willing to come clean on the difficult long-term savings we will need to make to balance the nation’s books. It is like a big hoax—they trade insults and numbers, but hide the truth.

There are some announcements—or, rather, re-announcements—that I welcome, not least the ongoing consultation to give local authorities control over housing rents and revenues, the proposals for an elected House of Lords and the commitment to give all young people under 25 a guaranteed job or training place. As ever, however, the devil will be in the detail. This is the 11th announcement on housing since September. The Government’s consultation on housing revenue has been grinding on since January, yet 1.8 million people are still waiting for a decent home.

We have been debating reform of the House of Lords—the other place—for more than a century, so now is the time for action, not simply more proposals. The Prime Minister is still silent on some of the wider more radical political reforms we need to clean up British politics once and for all. The hopes of young people to avoid the scrapheap of long-term unemployment must not be dashed in practice once again.

The Guardian’s Andrew Sparrow has been a busy boy – he’s been trying to keep pace with the Government’s U-turns since Gordon Brown made his statement announcing the Iraq inquiry last week. He reckons there have been a possible nine, and a definite five:

Indeed, it’s interesting to compare this list with Nick Clegg’s consistent pressure on the Government over the past few days, and the clarification he’s sought from inquiry chair Sir John Chilcot.

Economist columnist-blogger Bagehot has today analysed this litany of reverses in an attempt to explain Mr Brown’s reverse Midas touch:

I prefer to see the whole, shambolic episode as a parable of the dialectical weakness that has undone Mr Brown’s premiership.

The prime minister made his announcement without proper consultation, either of other political leaders or other interested parties, such as current and former generals. His proposal came in for criticisms—on the openness question, the composition of the panel, the time-frame and so on—that ought to have been glaringly predictable, and would certainly have been made plain by any meaningful canvassing of views. As a result, an initiative that was doubtless expected to be a vote-winner threatened to become a political disaster. The government has responded with an ongoing frenzy of back-tracking and buck-passing, leaving it to Sir John to resolve many of the controversial issues himself. (There is a useful catalogue of the various U-turns here.) What ought to have been a cross-party endeavour instead became, in the votes in the Commons yesterday evening, a futile test of the government’s strength.

There you have it: an encapsulation of the whole Brown tragicomedy. The motive may (or may not) have been noble. But the execution was a catalogue of shoddy judgments and mistakes, combining lack of consultation with a political tin ear, failings that perfectly illustrate why Mr Brown’s overall position is so vulnerable. That vulnerability in turn explains why he was obliged so swiftly to climb down. He is in large measure the author of his own predicament; and the predicament is in turn emasculating him.

And Labour’s U-turns aren’t restricted solely to Iraq. Just today, Harriet Harman scrapped the Government’s plans to limit the scope of the committee set up to oversee the reform of Parliament. Ministers had been planning to prevent the Wright Committee from examining any Government business. However, Ms Harman today contacted Lib Dem shadow Leader of the House, David Heath, to inform him that she would be accepting his amendment allowing the committee to look at Government business.

David Heath commented:

As the BBC reports:

Plans to raise taxpayers’ contributions to MPs’ pensions have been dropped, ahead of a Commons debate. A planned increase had been accepted by all parties in March but the government now says it will accept a Lib Dem plan to freeze the amount from public funds.

The proposal would have seen MPs’ own contributions rise by £60 a month, but the Lib Dems said taxpayers would have paid £750,000 more than last year. All party leaders have indicated that MPs’ final salary schemes must end.

The cost to the Treasury of MPs’ pensions has risen from

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Final result announced 8.30 pm:

John Bercow: 322
Sir George Young: 271

Read Speaker Bercow’s manifesto HERE.

1st round ballot result announced 5.10 pm:

John Bercow 179
Sir George Young 112
Margaret Beckett 74
Sir Alan Haselhurst 66
Sir Alan Beith 55
Ann Widdecombe 44
Parmjit Dhanda 26 – ELIMINATED
Richard Shepherd 15 – ELIMINATED
Sir Patrick Cormack 13 – ELIMINATED
Sir Michael Lord 9 – ELIMINATED

It looks like John Bercow might be pretty unstoppable, unless enough MPs unite behind Sir George Young. Credibtable performance by Sir Alan Beith, finishing fifth and ahead of Ann Widdecombe.

It’s a month since we opened our LDV poll asking readers who you would vote for to be the next House of Common Speaker. Reader, we failed you. Of the list of 11 possible contenders we provided, your top two faves – Frank Field and Sir Menzies Campbell – will not be running.

Indeed, it looks like only the four knights of the realm from our original line-up will actually appear on the ballot papers today: Sir Alan Beith, Sir Alan Haslehurst, Sir George Young and Sir Patrick McCormack. Others who seem likely to stand are Margaret Beckett, John …

Two Lib Dem MPs have declared who they’re supporting in the forthcoming election for the next Speaker of the House of Commons. Sandra Gidley and Alistair Carmichael are co-signatories to a letter published in today’s Guardian extolling the virtues of Conservative MP John Bercow:

With the standing of parliament at an all time low, the next Speaker will take office in unprecedented circumstances (Speaker candidates call for end to prime minister’s questions, 16 June). Reform is desperately needed as the “old” way of doing things does not carry the confidence of those we serve – too many of our traditions,

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Lord (Matthew) Oakeshott, the Lib Dems’ treasury spoeksman in the House of Lords, has been busy in recent weeks – busy compiling figures from Parliamentary answers on the level of “non-consolidated performance pay” (bonuses to you and me) shared between 2,600 of the most senior officials working in Whitehall. And here’s what he’s found:

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Prime Minister Gordon Brown has announced there will be a private inquiry into the Labour Government’s decision to go to war with Iraq. Beginning in July and reporting some time in 2010, the inquiry will cover the period July 2001 to July 2009 and be chaired by Sir John Chilcot.

Here’s Nick Clegg’s response to the Prime Minister’s statement:

I would like to thank the Prime Minister for his statement, and join him in paying tribute to our brave service men and women who have served our country in Iraq over the last six years.
And in particular to the 179

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There’s been a lot of discussion recently on Lib Dem Voice about our politicians, their quality and their background.

Rick Muir said we need to pluralise the routes into politics and open up local party selection processes to bring in a wider diversity of people. Afzal Shaikh called for “wider BME representation to mirror our modern society” and Sara Scarlett kicked off this comment-a-thon when she said we should “make politics more attractive to the professional class.”

Have your say on further issues of representation:

The Speaker’s Conference on Parliamentary Representation has now launched an online forum, in …

Remember the Telegraph’s hatchet job on Lib Dem MP Jo Swinson during their series of revelations about MPs’ expenses? (Lib Dem blogger James Graham has followed-up the issue on his own Quaequam Blog! HERE).

Well, on Monday evening, as billed here, I had the chance to put these points direct to the Daily Telegraph’s assistant editor, Andrew Pierce, at a debate posing the question, A triumph for journalism? (You can watch the debate online here – worth watching in full, but the section focusing on Jo starts about 29 minutes in).

The issues of dodgy …

Adrian Sanders, Liberal Democrat MP for Torbay, today apologised to Parliament after a member of his staff leaked a sensitive document.

From This is Devon:

And the MP’s researcher is set to be barred from Westminster for 28 days for “serious” contempt in passing on confidential information, and then trying to cover it up.

It follows an investigation by the parliamentary sleaze watchdog, which was called in after extracts from a draft report by the Culture, Media, and Sport Select Committee appeared in an article on the Guardian’s website.

The Committee on Standards and Privileges found no suggestion that Mr Sanders, who sits

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English local election results will be pouring in throughout the day. Lib Dem Voice will try and keep you abreast of what’s happening across the country, as we did throughout Thursday night with our open thread – many thanks in particular to those commenting who were able to break the good news that the Lib Dems had taken majority control of Bristol City Council amid disastrous results for Labour. Please do keep the news coming in from wherever you live.

As at 9.50 am, the BBC results scoreboard is telling me that the Lib Dems are the only party showing …