Another clumsy gaffe by Commons Speaker John Bercow.
Earlier this week he interrupted Tory backbencher Brooks Newmark, who was trying to ask George Osborne a “topical question” about a newly discovered error by Northern Rock in 2008 that cost the taxpayer hundreds of millions of pounds.
“Does my Right Honourable friend agree that this is yet another example of the previous government’s total failure to regulate the banking system properly, costing the country dearly?” said Newmark, MP for Braintree.
Speaker Bercow thought Newmark’s question was a historic matter when in fact it was based on a written statement released by the Treasury 10 minutes earlier.
“Order, order,” said Bercow. “May I gently remind the honourable gentleman of two things? First, topical questions are supposed to be brief, and secondly, they are supposed to relate to the policy of the current government, not that of the previous one.”
“How much more topical could I be?” Newmark told me afterwards. “I had an apology from the Speaker’s Office afterwards saying my question was perfectly in order.”
