John Bercow

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In 1986, Bercow was elected as a Conservative councillor in the London Borough of Lambeth, and served for four years representing the Streatham, St Leonard's ward. In 1987, he was appointed the youngest deputy group leader in the United Kingdom.

In 1995, Bercow was appointed as a special adviser to the Chief Secretary to the Treasury, Jonathan Aitken. After Aitken's resignation to fight a libel action, Bercow served as a special adviser to the Secretary of State for National Heritage, Virginia Bottomley.

Bercow was an unsuccessful Conservative candidate in the 1987 general election in Motherwell South, and again at the 1992 general election in Bristol South. In 1996 he paid £1,000 to charter a helicopter so that he could attend the selection meetings for two safe Conservative parliamentary seats on the same day – Buckingham and Surrey Heath – and was selected as the candidate for Buckingham. He has referred to the hiring of the helicopter as "the best £1,000 I have ever spent".

Bercow was first elected to parliament in the 1997 general election as the MP for Buckingham with a majority of 12,386. He then increased his majority at the 2001 general election being elected by a margin of 13,325 votes. He was re-elected at the 2005 general election with an again increased majority of 18,129.

Bercow devoted a notable portion of his maiden speech to praising former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher whom he called "the world's greatest living statesman." In 1999, the Almanac of British Politics described him as an "articulate, abrasive and waspish Commons performer" who Tony Blair had labelled as "nasty and ineffectual in equal quantity" for an attack he had made on Robin Cook.

Bercow rose quickly through the opposition's junior offices. He was appointed a frontbench spokesman for Education and Employment in June 1999, and then a frontbench spokesman for Home Affairs in July 2000, before being brought into the shadow cabinet in 2001 by the Conservative leader Iain Duncan Smith. He served as Shadow Chief Secretary to the Treasury from September 2001 to July 2002, and as Shadow Minister for Work and Pensions from July to November 2002. During this first spell on the front benches, Bercow publicly said that he did not think he was ruthless enough to reach the top of politics. In November 2002, when the Labour government introduced the Adoption and Children Act, which would allow unmarried gay and heterosexual couples to adopt children, Duncan Smith imposed a three-line whip requiring Conservative MPs to vote against the bill, rather than allowing a free vote. Arguing that it should be a free vote, Bercow defied the whips and voted with Labour, then resigned from the front bench. As a backbencher he was openly critical of Duncan Smith's leadership.

In November 2003, the new Conservative leader Michael Howard appointed Bercow as Shadow Secretary of State for International Development. However, he went on to clash with Howard over taxes, immigration and Iraq, and was sacked from the front bench in September 2004 after telling Howard that Ann Widdecombe was right to have said that there was "something of the night about him". Bercow has a long-standing interest in Burma and frequently raised issues of democracy and genocide in the country. In 2006, he was a patron of the Tory Reform Group. In 2001, he supported the ban on MPs becoming members of the Monday Club.

Bercow was formerly the treasurer of the All-Party Parliamentary Group for Tribal Peoples, an APPG composed of over 30 cross-party MPs which aims to raise parliamentary and public awareness of tribal peoples.

Bercow won the Stonewall award for Politician of the Year in 2010 for his work to support equality for lesbian, gay and bisexual people. Stonewall gave him a score of 100% for always voting for its position on gay equality issues in parliament between 2007 and 2009.

In 2005, Bercow won the Channel Four/Hansard Society Political Award for 'Opposition MP of the Year'. He said:

Following the defection of Conservative MP Quentin Davies to the Labour Party in June 2007, there were persistent rumours that Bercow was likely to be the next Conservative MP to leave the party.

Bercow did not at that time defect to Labour, but in September 2007, accepted an advisory post on Gordon Brown's government's review of support for children with speech, language and communication special needs. The Conservative Party chairman, Caroline Spelman, confirmed that this appointment was with the consent of the Conservative Party. Bercow had a long-term interest in this topic, as his son Oliver has been diagnosed with autism.

In 2008, Bercow was asked by Labour cabinet members Ed Balls and Alan Johnson to produce a substantial review of children and families affected by speech, language and communication needs (SLCN). After the report, the government pledged £52 million to raise the profile of SLCN within the education field.

The review looks at the extreme consequences to which communication problems can lead; from initial frustration at not being able to express oneself, to bullying or being bullied at school, fewer job prospects and even a descent into criminality.

The interim report highlighted a number of core issues: that speech, language and communication are not only essential life skills but fundamental human rights; that early identification of problems and intervention is important to avoid social problems later on; and that the current system of treatment was patchy, i.e. there was a need for services to be continually provided for children and families from an early age.

During the 2009 expenses scandal, it was revealed that Bercow changed the designation of his second home on more than one occasion – meaning that he avoided paying capital gains tax on the sale of two properties. He also claimed just under £1,000 to hire an accountant to fill in his tax returns. Bercow denied any wrongdoing, but agreed to pay £6,508 plus VAT to cover any tax that he may have had to pay to HM Revenue and Customs.

It was revealed in 2014 that the House of Commons authorities had destroyed all evidence of MPs' expenses claims prior to 2010. Bercow faced accusations that he had presided over what had been dubbed a "fresh cover-up" of the expenses scandal.

In July 2015, Bercow was again criticised for the amount of his expenses, including a claim of £172 for a 0.7-mile (1.1 km) chauffeur-driven journey. Andy Silvester, campaign director at the TaxPayers' Alliance, said: "This is an obscene waste of money and shows appalling judgment from whoever made the arrangements."

Bercow has supported a number of charities. He has been a Patron of the ME Association, Brain Tumour Research and a Patron of the Patchwork Foundation founded by Harris Bokhari. He also spoken at a fundraising event for the mental health charity Jami. In 2018, Bercow supported a fundraiser for Children in Need.

Retirement as Speaker and career after parliament

Having served 10 years as Speaker, Bercow became the longest-serving Speaker since Edward FitzRoy, who served nearly 15 years in post between 1928 and 1943.

In October 2018, it was reported that Bercow intended to step down as Speaker in the summer of 2019, but in January 2019 it was reported that he planned to stay as Speaker until the end of the parliament, in 2022. On 9 September 2019, amid debates about Brexit and parliament being prorogued, Bercow declared to the House of Commons that he would stand down on 31 October, or at the next general election, whichever was sooner; the former applied.

Despite the convention that former Speakers of the House of Commons are elevated to membership of the House of Lords when they resign, the Prime Minister denied Bercow a peerage. Sources in the Cabinet had suggested beforehand that this would be due to his rulings during the Parliamentary votes on Brexit, which the Government saw as biased against them. Bercow became the first ex-Speaker since the retirement of Arthur Onslow in 1761 to have been eligible for, but not have been made the offer of, a peerage. Overall, he is the tenth Speaker not to receive a Peerage since the 1707 Act of Union, and the fifth since Onslow's retirement not to be immediately elevated to the House of Lords: Charles Wolfran Cornwall died in office with no peerage offer to his surviving family, John Henry Whitley was offered but declined, and following the deaths of Edward Fitzroy and Sir Harry Hylton-Foster in office, their widows were ennobled instead. With no prospect of a government-sponsored peerage, Bercow lobbied the Labour leader, Jeremy Corbyn, in the hope that the opposition might give him preferment.

In November 2019, Bercow was appointed by Chancellor of the Exchequer Sajid Javid as Steward and Bailiff of the Manor of Northstead; since members of the House of Commons are prohibited from resigning, the legal device of appointment to an "office of profit under The Crown" is used to permit members to leave their legislative offices.

In the same month, Bercow stated that he "think[s] that Brexit is the biggest foreign policy mistake in the post-war period, and that is my honest view." This led to further questions about Bercow's impartiality during the Brexit parliamentary debates. He maintained that he was impartial during the debates, and only made his views clear after leaving office.

His autobiography, Unspeakable, was published in 2020. In his memoirs, he was highly critical of David Cameron, Theresa May, Boris Johnson and Andrea Leadsom. Bercow has since identified himself as a 'soft leftist' and declared that he voted for Sadiq Khan to be Mayor of London. He was also nominated for a peerage by Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, but this was refused by Prime Minister Boris Johnson. Bercow has also been very critical of the Conservative government's handling of COVID-19 since leaving Parliament.

On 19 June 2021, Bercow said that he had joined the Labour Party "a few weeks ago". He said Boris Johnson's Conservative Party was "reactionary, populist, nationalistic and sometimes even xenophobic." He said his move to Labour was motivated by his "support for equality, social justice and internationalism. That is the Labour brand."

It was revealed that Bercow broke the pledge he made in 2012 not to take his speaker's pension until he is 65 years old. While Bercow originally "proposed before he leaves office to waive his entitlement to the Speaker's pension until he reaches the age of 65", in 2021 he revealed he started taking the pension when he left the office, after speaking with his wife.

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