Sally Bercow is only human like the rest of us

The wife of the Speaker, Sally Bercow has given a fairly candid interview where she talks about some of the things she did when she was younger. Get ready to be completely and utterly shocked:

• Apparently, when she was younger, she used to drink a bit too much. It started when she was a student and continued until her early 30s when she decided it was causing problems for her and she stopped.
• She also, occasionally used to go home with men she had met in bars. That's right! A woman, used to indulge in casual sex. What's worse is that she found it quite exciting and does not appear to be utterly ashamed of her behaviour.
• She has political opinions! I know! A Labour politician, a Labour politician has views about David Cameron and that his party is for the privileged few!

[/SARCASM]

Unsurprisingly Nadine "I block people who disagree with me on Twiter" Dorries has waded in:

We desperately need to restore both authority and respect to Parliament. What this interview has done is remove any painstaking progress Parliament has made and reduced the Speaker and his office to that of a laughing stock. How can we ask the people to trust us, when the man who holds us to account has such poor judgment that he allowed his wife to give such an appalling self obsessed interview?

So apparently the fact that the wife of the Speaker has the temerity to have had a life when she was a bit younger has removed "painstaking progress" from parliament. WTF!? I know Nadine rarely engages brain before mouth but this is complete nonsense. There is a real vein of misogyny running through Dorries' comments here. A man has "allowed" his wife to do an interview. I'm sure in many other contexts the idea of a man trying to shut up a woman would appal her but in this case because she hates John Bercow he and his wife are fair game for comments like this.

Sally Bercow can do what she likes. She does not need permission from her husband. She is an active Labour politician and nothing I have seen from her past is any different to the experiences of millions of people in this country.

I for one am grateful that she feels able to speak out like this and I very much hope it does not affect her political career one iota.