Ten years as the speaker of the House Of Commons has made John Bercow famous and, for some, infamous. Eloquent but verbose, a proud and forthright politician from humble beginnings, Bercow’s growing national and international recognition was taken to a height unknown by previous speakers thanks to three years of Brexit.

October marked the end of his tenure residing over the House, his replacement as speaker and the end of Prime Minister’s Questions being much more exciting than it had the right to be: his orthodoxy for conduct and those polysyllabic cries of “Order” that characterised his dominion over the chamber, were a welcome respite in an hour of unabated cattiness and backstabbing.

In a Commons bitterly divided across party lines, rancorous and often paralysed, Bercow has been above all else a champion of parliament itself, first defending the rights of Brexiteers, then their opponents. He has also fought tirelessly against discrimination and for the rights of the LGBTQ community, receiving a Pink News Award this year from Nancy Pelosi for his tireless campaigning.

Here he grapples with Alastair Campbell on the slow torture of Brexit and accusations of bullying, while defending the actions of his old tennis partner Boris Johnson and the sincerity of Jeremy Corbyn. Now, to borrow his own catchphrase, it’s Bercow’s turn to do some “chuntering from a sedentary position”. He’s not bad at impressions either...

Below is an edited version of the interview.

© Simon Webb

Alastair Campbell: Did I read rightly that you've been turned down for Wimbledon membership?

John Bercow: Well, I haven't received any formal communication, but somebody who was putting me up for membership of the All England Club changed his mind. This particular person disapproved of decisions I had made from the Chair and wrote to me to say that in the circumstances he felt he must withdraw his nomination. I'm not going to say who it was. Do I bear any ill will towards this person? No, absolutely not. Am I bothered about it? No, absolutely not. Am I losing any sleep over it? No, I'm not.

AC: What about the House Of Lords?

JB: Well, if I were invited to go to the House Of Lords I would, but we'll have to wait and see.

AC: What about these stories that the government think you've been such a bad boy that they'll punish you by not getting you there?

JB: Well, I'm not going to conduct a public debate about it. It has been the established convention for a very long time. Speaker after speaker after speaker after speaker has gone to the House Of Lords on retirement. If the opportunity arose I would be inclined to do so. One has to see what happens. I think I can honestly say, Alastair, that I've never lost sleep over any work-related matter. I'm not going to start now.

AC: Never?

JB: No. I might have lost sleep in relation to a matter of family health, but not in relation to work.

AC: When you were getting lambasted for the Grieve Amendment or the Benn Act, Tories saying you were exposing yourself as a dreadful remainer and tearing up the constitution, you didn't toss and turn and think, “Have they got a point?”

JB: No, not at all. I thought that I made the right judgement. I didn't tear up the rulebook. There was a lot of flexibility contained in the relevant rules. It had not been done before, but it wasn't illegitimate. The second point really is that when people say, “Oh, well, he's the remainer-in-chief”, one of the responsibilities of the speaker is to facilitate minorities within the House. When the Brexiteers, before the world Brexiteer was invented, were in the minority, I frequently let them put down urgent questions, secure emergency debates, put down an amendment to the Queen's Speech. When it suited those people, they weren't complaining. When the tide turned and the minority became the majority, some of them didn't like it.

AC: What about the bullying allegations? Did they keep you awake at night?

JB: No.

AC: Because?

JB: Because none of them is valid. I've never bullied anyone, anywhere, at any time, in any way. You can't make people feel what they don't feel and I don't want to make any criticism of an individual, but if you're saying, well, “Didn't it upset you?” No, because you have to have faith in yourself. Some working relationships don't work. That doesn't prove that one person maltreated another person. I have got several people on my staff who worked with me for several years, two who worked with me throughout my ten years. That of course is of no interest to what I would call the “bigot faction”. If the bigot faction have made up their minds that you’re a baddie, if the bigot faction are determined to ram home that message at every turn, well that's what the bigot faction will do. So, if the bigot faction want to go on forever and a day saying, “Bully Boy Bercow”, no doubt they will do so. I've sought to be a progressive changemaker. Some people don't like change. So, in very simple terms, it's reform versus reaction. In the end, somebody has to prevail.

AC: How did you feel that in the election to succeed you, most of the contenders were saying, “I will be 'Not John Bercow’”?

JB: I'm untroubled by that. People have to craft their own narrative.

AC: Let's imagine you've not been speaker for the last ten years, but a backbench MP, and you'd been called in one of the big Brexit debates. Tell me what you would have said about Brexit.

JB: This is the biggest foreign policy mistake, blunder, of the post-War period. I don't say that because I am some sort of starry-eyed Europhile, with misty romanticism, or that I have a kind of Roy Jenkins-style, Ted Heath-style, Ken Clarke-style passion, love, for the European project. It's more a hard-headed calculation of the British national interest. If you ask me why I myself think that it is better for the UK to be part of the European Union, that’s the best deal, I think I would say in six words: power bloc, trade bloc, civilised values.

AC: But if you've got Bernard Jenkins or Peter Bone...

JB: [Shouts] Mister Peter Boooooooooooone!

AC: They're going to say, “There you go. The guy was a massive remainer and that affected the way that he operated in the Chair.”

JB: They probably will say that. But, Alastair, you're experienced enough as a campaigner and a strategist to know that you can't make people think what they don't think and you can't stop them thinking what they do think!

AC: Do you think there has been any time in this process where you thought, “I'm so angry at this ridiculous Brexit nonsense that, actually, I'm going to try to help the remainers”?

JB: No. What I wanted to do was to ensure that the will of the House was expressed. It wasn't a question of trying to help the remainers. I facilitated the Brexiteers when they were known as Eurosceptics, or some people called them Europhobes. In more recent times, I have facilitated those who have had a different view from the government and have wanted to prosecute it with zeal. I didn't break a single rule. I interpreted existing rules. The second point is that sometimes people in government have behaved as though they have an absolute and untrammelled right to secure exactly what they want, irrespective of the fact that this is a minority government. That, I think, is wrong. [On the Grieve amendment] Julian Smith the government chief whip, belaboured me over it and complained bitterly that it was wrong and unfair and unacceptable. I said to him it isn't unacceptable. It isn't wrong. It isn't out-with the rules. If you strongly object to this amendment, the answer is to persuade, cajole, exhort or corral your members into voting against it. Don't bang the desk or the table by the Chair and complain at me that I'm not protecting you from the Parliamentary arithmetic

AC: You've defined Brexit as the biggest policy blunder of our lifetime. How does it make you feel, then, that Boris Johnson is prime minister, determined to commit that blunder?

JB: Well, he doesn't regard it as a blunder. He's perfectly entitled to his view. I don't want to personalise it. As the late Tony Benn used to say [mimics Benn], "Westminster is not about personalities. It’s about the issues.” I've always had perfectly amicable relations with Boris Johnson. I played tennis with him. He was a very generous and gracious host and he was quite generous on the court [Bercow won]. I don't want to knock him. He will pursue the course that he thinks is right, supported by the great majority of his party.

AC: Do you feel liberated now that you have a platform you didn't have before, when you were just the Chair?

JB: I didn't feel imprisoned or incarcerated or inhibited before.

AC: But you couldn’t stand up and say, “You're wrong.” You can now stand up and say, “You're wrong.”

JB: Yes and I don't think there is anything wrong about that. To those who say, “Ah, well, this is the proof. This demonstrates that this is what he always wanted to achieve. This was always his agenda. He was seeking to thwart [Brexit]”, there are always people who have conspiracy theories. You can't stop them. I will maintain, with great insistence, until my dying day, because it’s true, that I always sought to facilitate all points of view. It is possible to disagree with someone fundamentally, but to respect that person. Bill Cash – I've teased him, I've been jocular with him, but I've always respected Bill. He's got granite-like integrity and he's got a particular point of view. I didn't agree with it, but I facilitated him just as I facilitated Ken Clarke. You asked me what my view is and for the reasons I’ve given, which is a pragmatic calculation of what the European Union provides, I think we're better off staying in.

AC: Let me give you another issue that does relate to the Chair and the rules of the House. I do not understand why an MP cannot stand up and say to Boris Johnson that he's a liar. Because he is a liar. Yet, within the rules of the House, he's a right honourable gentleman. Are we not beyond all parliamentarians being honourable?

JB: I hope not. I see your argument. I'm not unmindful of it or insensitive to it. On the whole, I think it is better to maintain a basic civility of discourse. The argument for that rule is that we are supposed to be honourable and right honourable members, honourably disagreeing with and contradicting each other, not impugning each other.

AC: But he's throwing that out the window.

JB: Well, some people may think he is and other people will think that he isn't. I don't think it would be right that on the basis of some people's views of a particular leader at a specific time, summarily to dispense with a long-established convention that we don't accuse each other of dishonesty.

AC: John, if I was an MP, making a maiden speech. I could see a very good, strong, powerful, legitimate speech, based on the fact that we now have a prime minister who is a liar. You couldn't make that in the House Of Commons. That person would be kicked out of the House Of Commons for telling the truth, no?

JB: Because it's hypothetical I'm reluctant to pronounce on it. I still take my stand on the basic issue of principle that we shouldn't impugn each other’s integrity.

AC: It’s the “good chaps” theory of politics.

JB: It probably is grounded in that. I still think that with a degree of creativity and verbal dexterity it’s possible for someone to expose the weaknesses, the inconsistencies, the...

AC: Lies.

JB: ...contradiction between rhetoric and reality in what someone else has said or done. I don't think it is necessary to coarsen the debate by accusations of lying.

AC: You're operating under the assumption that they will tell the truth and that is the basis under which most prime ministers have operated. If they tell a lie at the despatch box then they are out of the job. Boris Johnson has no such qualms.

JB: Well, you'd have to call to mind particular examples, but I am reluctant to act as a referee or umpire on that matter.

AC: If you do get invited to take a seat in the House Of Lords, would you sit as a crossbencher?

JB: Gosh, this is all very hypothetical. That is certainly the norm, yes.

AC: If you were voting in the upcoming election are you still a Conservative?

JB: I'm not going to comment on my voting intention. I have got out of party politics and I've no plans to enter party politics.

AC: Would the Brexit debate prevent you from offering full support to your former party?

JB: I'm not proposing to offer support to my former party or indeed any other party. So, notwithstanding your extraordinarily agile technique of trying to secure an answer to the question that I first declined to answer, by using all sorts of other routes and back passes and sideways flicks and so on, I think I can resist the temptation – for now.

AC: You did Peter Bone a moment ago...

JB: Mr Peter Boooooooooone!

AC: Which of all the names that you called do you most enjoy the expression thereof?

JB: Bambos Charalambous! Followed by Thangam Debbonaire! Followed by Mr Kenneth Claaaaaaaaaaaaaarke!

AC: I've heard you do a good Ken Clarke impersonation.

JB: The point about Ken is the elongated pronunciation of words: "John, you're perfectly entitled to your vieeeeeewws!" he used to say to me a long time ago, “exaggerating paranoia about the future of Britain in Euurrrrope. What you need to dooooo is just lie back and relaaaaax! Don't be quite so inteeense about it. It's going to haaappen. We will becoooome, because the national interest requiiiiiiires, more intertwiiiiined with the European Uuuuunion." I like Ken enormously. He’s a great character.

AC: Who else can you do?

JB: I'm actually pretty bad at everybody else. I can do Tony Benn. He did a wonderful speech, which I heard him deliver several times. [Mimics] "Whenever I meet anybody with power I always ask that person five questions. What power have you got? Who gave it to you? In whose interest do you exercise it? To whom are you accountable? And how can we get rid of you?" And I always thought that was a wonderful speech.

AC: Your father was a minicab driver. You went to a comprehensive, didn't go to Oxbridge. You ought to be a bit more cor-blimey.

JB: I can't explain it. I've never had an elocution lesson. I didn't contrive my accent. Dad was probably rather mannered in his speech, as I am. Dad regarded it as a serious sin to split an infinitive or put a preposition at the end of a sentence.

AC: I saw a bit of Hansard research, a graph, the percentage of words said in the House by the speaker. Until you, it never got above one. You, at points, have been 2.5.

JB: I’m surprised it’s not higher!

AC: Is that verbosity or is that history?

JB: Well it is certainly verbosity, but why is it history?

AC: Because the Sspeaker's role has been so important in the last period in history.

JB: In that case it is probably because the nature of the debates or the requirement for the speaker to respond to points of order has been greater, prompting a greater flow of words from me and the Chair.

AC: Are you proud of the fact that when I was in Denmark recently, a taxi driver asked me what “chuntering from a sedentary position” meant?

JB: I'm not ashamed of it. Actually, the expression “chuntering from a sedentary position” is not new in parliament. Back in 1997, I was making a speech and David Blunkett did indeed heckle me. I said, “Well, the secretary of state may chunter from a sedentary position, but if he can exercise what modicum of self-restraint he is able to muster in the circumstances, I would be most grateful." It was probably very pretentious of me and certainly very presumptuous because he was a huge figure and I was just a minnow. I once said to Glenda Jackson that she was chuntering and she said to me, "Let me say to the member for Buckingham, I do not chunter!"

AC: You have got a sort of global fame of sorts. What does that say about what our politics has become?

JB: First, we are discussing an issue that interests a lot of people beyond the UK. The other factor is the sheer intensity of it, the high-octane quality and often, let’s be candid about it, the sheer toxicity of the debate probably acts as a magnet, so people are watching.

AC: Have you noticed an escalation in the toxicity within the chamber?

JB: Yes. I think it’s a pity. I want to defend my colleagues because I completely reject the charge against parliament that, for example, as one minister recently put it, “This Parliament is a disgrace!"

AC: Geoffrey Cox.

JB: Yes. I completely disagree with that. This parliament is not a disgrace. This parliament, in being divided, reflects the country. This parliament was elected after the European referendum. It reflects the fact of huge public differences. This parliament, I must say to Geoffrey and others, is doing what parliament is there to do. To parley. So, I can understand the people who say I’m fed up with this, time to get this done, time to move on, time to talk about something else. But that absolutely understandable human reaction is not a good guide to policy. It is better for us to spend ages talking about it and ultimately get it right, than to spend very little time talking about it and ultimately get it wrong.

AC: So how do you feel about this deliberate playing of parliament against the people, which has been a Johnson tactic?

JB: It's a legitimate tactic. I'm not going to knock an individual politician for doing what he or she thinks is right.

AC: You don't think it’s dangerous?

JB: Well, it can be risky and it is up to people who take a different view to articulate a different view. My own view, for what it's worth, is that parliament has a responsibility to question, to probe, to scrutinise, to challenge, to analyse, to amend, to expose errors of omission or commission of the government of the day.

AC: How do you feel about the number of MPs who are stepping down, saying that they are fed up with the abuse?

JB: Well, I am worried about that. The increased toxicity of the debate is a problem. I think it is a pity that we have almost entirely lost the ability, a rather civilising and civilised ability, to disagree agreeably. It ought to be possible for one person to hold a view radically different from that of someone else without resorting to ad hominem abuse. It is a real problem, not just within the political class or among sections of the mainstream media – all this nonsense about malcontents and enemies of the people, traitors – it is dangerous stuff. It's very worrying indeed when you observe on the internet what I would call the “keyboard warriors" who want to flay, demonise, harass, intimidate, threaten or worse, anyone who happens to hold a view that differs from their own. What level of argument is that? Democracy, Alastair, is not about decibel levels. An argument isn’t made more powerful because it is made more loudly or because it is made more frequently.

AC: That's why I'm surprised that you're not more concerned about a prime minister doing this “parliament against the people” thing, because that is the same thing the papers do. Traitor, surrender, enemies of the people. That is fuelling this sense of parliament being there as an enemy, rather than representative of the people.

JB: Well, I didn't say I wasn't concerned about it. I defend a party leader's right to do so and say this is [their] narrative.

AC: Even if it's dangerous? Even if it leads to death threats?

JB: I don't think you can censor political leaders. Political leaders must be entitled within the law to frame the debate as they think fit. Should a party leader be threatened with prosecution or arrest for saying exactly what he or she thinks within the existing law? Absolutely not. If you look me in the eye and say, do I think that our parliamentary democracy is fundamentally in good health, I do! I think that parliament has been standing up for itself and that seems to me to be a good thing. Now, there are people who say, well, it shouldn’t. It should just be facilitating the will of the people.

AC: Like Cox? Like Johnson?

JB: Well, they're entitled to that view, but I don't think that there is necessarily anything we can identify as the settled will of the people. It isn't static, it isn't God-given, it isn't predetermined and it isn't unchanging.

AC: Do you agree with me that actually a general election is not the way to resolve Brexit.

JB: I don't think that a general election will put an end to the argument about Brexit. It is perfectly legitimate for parliament to vote for an election and it may be, depending upon the result of that election, that phase one of Brexit will be concluded. The idea that the Brexit debate is going to be ended on 12 December is for the birds! We will be debating Brexit for a minimum of five years, very likely for ten and quite conceivably for 15 years. All we are dealing with at the moment is phase one – the Withdrawal Agreement. What is the basis on which we withdraw, if we do so? After that, there is a whole second phase, which is about the trade relationship with the EU and with the wider world. There's the security relationship, there's cooperation on terrorism and trafficking, and identity theft.

AC: If I can put you back on the backbenches, would you also in that speech say that you favour a second referendum to resolve Brexit?

JB: I can see a compelling case for it. There certainly isn't a majority in the existing House for it. I've no idea whether there will be a majority after the election, but if you are asking me, is another public vote a great violation of democracy or a threat to any prospect of domestic harmony, no! The truth is there are inflamed passions and irreconcilable differences over Brexit. There is no perfect solution. There is no absolute route map to an end to discord. There is discord. I hope that discord will ease and the rancour will reduce and that eventually the country will come together. The country voted for departure. It is not at all clear that it voted for a destination. So it seems to me to be perfectly respectable for people who want to argue for a second referendum to do so. I haven't been in the lead on that and of course I wouldn't have been because I was sitting in the Speaker's Chair. If I am asked whether I think there is a respectable or even a compelling case for a further public vote, then I think there is, but I am not saying that will happen. I completely understand that the Conservative Party doesn't want that and it has a respectable argument for saying we don't need to have continued referenda; if we win this election and we get a majority, we are entitled to implement it. But I also think – and you're saying I'm sitting on the fence and I'm not sitting on the fence; I'm acknowledging that there is an argument for saying if they win the election they can proceed as they see fit because the election has to some extent given people an opportunity to give their verdict on this – but there is also a very respectable argument for people who want an explicit and specific vote on a deal, or the absence of a deal, continuing to make that case.

AC: OK. Marmite. I've got some sympathy with this. I'm a bit of a Marmite character myself.

JB: I had noticed.

AC: People either love you or hate you. Did you see the effigy the other day?

JB: No, I didn't see this.

AC: Bonfire Night. A 36-foot effigy of John Bercow! I can send you the film of it.

JB: Well, if it provided some merriment...

AC: It was so big that your head was blown off by the wind and they decided just to burn the head. Your body is safe somewhere, but your head was burnt to a cinder. So tell me about the Marmite factor.

JB: I think it is important to have a clear mission, to have a set of objectives, to know what you want to do with the office you hold. I thought I would like the office and I would like to use it to empower the legislature, to make parliament look more like the country that you are charged to represent and to engage better with civil society. I hope I have achieved, to a degree, those objectives. It comes back to the question of whether you have behaved honestly. I am to some people very irritating. But I am authentic. The lowest grade, the most downmarket, the most feeble argument against me isn't even an argument. It's just abuse. It is to say, “Well, it’s all artifice, an act. It's a performance. He's acting a part.” No. I'm doing what I believe to be right and I absolutely admit that I am a different person today with different beliefs and values to those which propelled me into parliament 22 years ago.

AC: When you were in the bloody Monday Club [a Conservative-affiliated but autonomous right-wing pressure group].

JB: Of which I am enormously and permanently ashamed. If you believe in the Rehabilitation Of Offenders Act, given that I resigned from the Monday Club in February 1984 at the age of 21 and it is now 35 years and nine months later, I would hope that I would be forgiven for that. My basic attitude is really twofold. First, informed by you, Alastair, at a charity event shortly after I became speaker, you said to me, “John, don't let them invade your headspace.” So my approach has been: if constructive criticism is expressed, listen to it, heed it, try to do better. If it is just ad hominem abuse about one's voice, one's manner, one's alleged treachery, one's stature or one's looks, ignore it. It just doesn't matter. My second point, I don't know whether this was caused by me playing competitive tennis, I've always taken the attitude to never say die, keep buggering on, refuse to lose, insist on prevailing in the end.

He then recounts, with remarkable accuracy, at great length, set by set, the story of how Mexican-American tennis star Pancho Gonzales beat Charlie Pasarell in one of the longest matches of all time at Wimbledon, in 1969. The theme is stubbornness.

Well, I am stubborn. Churchill’s KBO, "Keep Buggering On". Don't let the buggers get you down. I remember once when I was going through really difficult times, personal difficulties in my marriage, and a very dear friend of mine, Charles Walker, said, “I don't know how you keep going, John.” I said, “Well, I’m not going to walk around with a paper bag over my head, Charles. I’ve not done anything wrong.” He said, “No, but it must be too awful for words and I don't know how you keep going.” I said, “The answer is, Charles, I compartmentalise.” So I can honestly say that I've had good days and bad days, successes and failures, and I've got supporters and critics. I feel incredibly lucky.

AC: So what are you going to do now, for the rest of your life?

JB: I'd like to speak, write and consult. I'd like to strengthen my links with higher education. And I'm absolutely potty about sport. If I can play a bit more tennis and watch a bit more tennis and football and possibly even do something of any use in the field of sport...

AC: One final thing. You are Jewish. What has your sense been of the Labour Party anti-Semitism debate?

JB: I think that racism is a challenge across society. After decades in which huge advances were made, I think there is a real danger of regression now. Now, I know you didn't ask more widely about racism, but that is my answer on racism. I don't want to intrude on the grief of a particular political party. All I would say is that, yes, it is an issue and it needs to be addressed, but I myself have never experienced anti-Semitism from a member of the Labour Party. Point two, though there is a big issue and it has to be addressed, I do not myself believe that Jeremy Corbyn is anti-Semitic. That is my honest view. You haven't asked me explicitly, but you've nevertheless drawn me and I want to make that point. I am not saying that he doesn't have a challenge in his party. It is an issue and it does need to be addressed and I respect those who are very concerned about it, but I don't believe Jeremy Corbyn is anti-Semitic. I've known him for the 22 years I've been in parliament. Even, actually, when I was a right-winger we got on pretty well. He was quite a personable individual.

AC: Well, you probably voted with him more often than he did with the Labour government!

JB: Well, he was certainly a persistent and prolific rebel. He's been very supportive of me and I've never detected so much as a whiff of anti-Semitism.

AC: Have you ever experienced anti-Semitism outside of parliament?

JB: Yes. Yes, I have. I remember somebody once saying, I'm not going to say who, somebody once said to me, "If I had my way, people like you – Ber-coff – wouldn't be in this place." I said, “When you say people like me, do you mean people like me in the sense that I'm lower class or Jewish?” To which he replied, "Both." I think people should be very careful about casting aspersions on other political parties. There are challenges of racism across society and that does affect political parties. Each party has to deal with it. Look, I said what I did about Jeremy Corbyn. I have never experienced racism from Boris Johnson or Theresa May or David Cameron and I am making no charge against any of them. Of those three, the one with whom I had the most difficult relations was David Cameron. I am no great fan of David Cameron and I think in addition to his many talents he has many flaws and he made many mistakes, but I certainly don't suggest for one moment that there was a racist bone in his body.

AC: Give me a backbencher that most people have never heard of that you think is really impressive.

JB: Diana Johnson. Absolutely superb in campaigning on women’s reproductive rights, but in particular on the rights of the victims of the contaminated blood scandal. I think Diana has been an absolute heroine and she applies a principle which I think is at the heart of your approach to campaigning – quantity, persistence and, above all, repetition. You have to keep making the point over and over and over and over again and just at the point at which you are boring yourself, you'll be getting that message across and making progress.

AC: Best frontbench speaker of your time?

JB: As a debater, without question, Robin Cook. The sheer sharpness and agility, nimbleness of foot, he was definitely the best debater. That isn't quite the same as saying the best speaker. The best speaker in my time in parliament? I would say Tony Benn. Tony was a brilliant speaker, but I wouldn't say he was a great debater. In terms of backbench speeches, if I could pick two, one from each side, Alison McGovern's speech on the Hillsborough disaster really made the hair stand up on the back of my head. Sheer emotion and pulsating energy, obvious conviction and sincerity. It was pretty special. In the same-sex marriage debate, one of the debates on the legislation, the Conservative MP for Finchley And Golders Green, Mike Freer, delivered an unforgettable speech, which is to his enduring credit.

The interview, conducted on the day the new speaker was being elected, then continued with Bercow making remarkably accurate predictions of how the various candidates would do. He was just one out in his prediction of how many votes his very different successor, Sir Lindsay Hoyle, would get. And he got the order in which MPs backed them – or failed to – spot on. He certainly knew his parliament!

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