Michael Portillo shocks me

The "teaser" for the article on the Times website was "We need to lift our eyes above the expenses scandal" and I was immediately fired up for a through fisking of what was bound to be a bunch of self-serving guff. What I found instead was quite thought-provoking:

‘Order! The prime minister is clearly not answering the questions put to him by this House of Commons. It is pointless continuing. The House will move to next business.” In a few words Mr Speaker Bercow could fundamentally change the relationship between the Commons and the government.

And:

On taking office the new Speaker made clear that he did not want ministers to come to the House to give a statement that had already been announced to the media. He will need to enforce that. If he hears Ed Balls, to take a name at random, repeating what we have already heard on the BBC Today programme, Bercow needs to stop him in his tracks and call next business. The sting in moving rapidly to the next item on the parliamentary agenda is that the government would be unprepared and would probably lose a whole day of parliamentary time.

If Bercow acted in that way he would provoke a row, even a constitutional crisis. But the government is weak at present and the media would surely take the Speaker’s side. It would be difficult for the Tories to oppose him since they have long complained about how Brown fails to answer.

It's pretty hard to disagree with that, isn't it? I mean, there's fuck-all chance that the jumped-up little cockweasel will do anything useful, but it is absolutely true that he really should stand up for the country. He was all talk and no fucking trousers:

Bercow certainly needs to recover his personal position. He came to the post sadly unprepared. In the extraordinary circumstances of his election, during the scandal of MPs’ expenses, he had no manifesto for reform. In his first moments in the chair he had the opportunity to reshape his office and provide the House with leadership. Sadly, he blew it. Brown introduced legislation to reform the House on the day that Bercow was chosen, showing that the government sees no role for him beyond shouting “Order!”; and Bercow failed to claim his ground.

It's quite hard for me to accept that someone as wet as Michael Portillo is actually saying word for word exactly how I see things.

We need to lift our eyes above the expenses scandal, bad though it was. The Commons has ceased to perform its necessary role and our democracy no longer functions well. Bercow can make a difference and should be supported. If Cameron works with him, resurrecting parliament could prove the most significant and popular achievement of his premiership.

All absolutely true, of course. But neither the buttered new potato nor the cock-sniffing arrogant gazongal nut have the slightest interest in doing anything useful.

Not while there's a teat to be milked, a populace to be bullied and a world stage to be strutted upon.