WATCH: John Bercow apologises for mimicking veteran Tory MP Ken Clarke
2 min read
John Bercow has apologised for mimicking veteran Tory MP Ken Clarke.
The Speaker was responding to Plaid Cymru's Jonathan Edwards, who complained about about a fellow MP "disparaging" his Welsh accent during a Commons debate on Monday.
Mr Bercow, who has faced calls to step down over a Parliamnetary bullying scandal, demanded an end to “personal mockery” saying it was out of step with the “recently expressed determination” to treat staff with more respect.
“Personal mockery of one another - and members come in all shapes and sizes with a wide diversity of accents, national origins and ways of speaking - is wrong and to many people it constitutes a form of bullying,” he told MPs.
He then apologised for his "pretty feeble" attempts at mimicking veteran Tory MP Ken Clarke, saying: “I am the last person to deprecate good humour in the way in which we interact. I may on occasion myself have caused offence by my extraordinarily ineffective mimicry, for which I apologise.”
“I have been known to seek to imitate the father of the house, the right honourable and learned gentleman, the member for Rushcliffe, who has been a friend of mine for well over twenty years. As I say, my efforts of imitating him are usually pretty feeble and they have always been undertaken in a friendly spirit.”
Mr Clarke, who is the longest-serving MP in the Commons, has previously defended Mr Bercow over his role in the bullying scandal, saying he was the victim of a “witch-hunt”.
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