Andy McSmith's Diary: John Bercow uses PMQs to wind up clock-watching David Cameron

The antagonism between the two simmers below the surface every time the Prime Minister addresses the Commons

John Bercow has been Speaker of the House of Commons since 2009

The antagonism between David Cameron and Speaker John Bercow simmers below the surface every time the Prime Minister addresses the Commons.

It started years ago. Cameron remembers Bercow as a head-banging Thatcherite who seemed to undergo a personality change after he married a Labour Party member, and won the speakership with Labour’s support. When Bercow was still a Tory MP, he concluded that Cameron was a slick but shallow political operator. He now sees himself as the defender of Parliament’s right to call the executive to account.

Bercow is forever ticking off MPs for being rowdy during Prime Minister’s Questions. Since Tory MPs jeering at Jeremy Corbyn are currently the worst offenders, the Speaker has taken to punishing them by making Prime Minister’s Questions run on past its official finishing time of 12.30pm.

The person most affected is, of course, David Cameron. Last week, he pointedly mentioned as the session drew to a close that the time was 12.38pm. This week, as the ritual dragged on towards 12.40pm, a microphone picked up his exasperated remark: “It’s getting longer and longer.”

That is nothing compared with what he really thinks of John Bercow.

All quiet on the Preston front

There has been a clamour of publicity around the 200th and 600th anniversaries of the battles of Waterloo and Agincourt, in which the English beat the French, but very little about this month’s 300th anniversary of the last battle fought on English soil.

This was the Battle of Preston, in which English troops loyal to George I defeated a predominantly Scottish army who wanted James Stuart, the “Old Pretender”, as their king.

Preston council has raised money and has been running events since July to publicise the battle, sometimes known as the Preston Fight; a dozen English and Ulster Protestant MPs have signed a Commons motion marking it; and Mark Hendrick, Preston’s Labour Co-operative MP, has invited the Scottish Secretary, David Mundell, to join the celebration in Preston. But Mundell is not going. He dare not offend the Scots.

Braying anchors

At the humble end of the journalist profession, there is nothing we enjoy more than a catfight between stars of the trade.

Yesterday, the BBC’s Huw Edwards let loose at Tom Bradby, who recently took over as chief anchor on ITV News at Ten. Edwards pointed out that six million people were watching the drama Doc Martin, but when that finished and the news came on, the viewing figures dropped to two million. Bradby and team, he suggested on Facebook, had “conspired to lose 4 million viewers in a few minutes”. Meanwhile, he proclaimed, the BBC Ten O’Clock News was watched by 4.4 million.

ITV retaliated by claiming that Edwards was rattled by the impact of its overhaul of the evening news. “Someone get Huw a saucer of milk. It’s a bit desperate, really,” an ITV source told the Daily Mail.

Mind you, this feud may prove to be no more than a mild tiff compared with the massive ego clash that is due to begin in January, when Robert Peston takes up his new role as ITV’s political editor, and hosts a Sunday morning chat show. If, by chance, that show attracts a smaller audience than Andrew Marr’s, will Marr gloat? Oh, I think he will.

Cross words

Wales is to have a “future generations commissioner”, who will vet Welsh government policies for their long-term impact.

Sophie Howe, who has landed the £95,000-a-year position, says she is delighted, understandably. Others are not pleased. They complain that she is too close to the Labour Party, as a former special adviser, and brings no specialised knowledge to the job.

Having seen her on television, Ruth Price, a Plaid Cymru councillor, was unimpressed. She tweeted: “Sophie Howe was crossing her legs Sharon Stone-style in her interview. What a cocky little £93k madam.”

The councillor later backed down, tweeting: “I withdraw my earlier ‘Sharon Stone’ remarks and apologise if they caused offence.”