List of Speaker of the House of Commons Candidates

Iain Dale has a live blog of the proceedings for the election of the new Speaker here.


+++ UPDATE: 22/06/2009 09:30: Douglas Carswell MP announces for Richard Shepherd for Speaker of the House of Commons +++

I seem to be getting a lot of traffic from people looking for a list of the candidates for Speaker of the House of Commons which takes place on Monday 22nd June so I thought I would be helpful and keep a list of them updated here as well as some further information and links to what other bloggers are saying about the race:

LIST OF DECLARED CANDIDATES:

Margaret Beckett
John Bercow
Sir Patrick CormackSir Alan Haselhurst
Sir George Young
Parmjit Dhanda
Sir Alan Beith
Sir Michael LordAnn Widdecombe
Richard Shepherd

Frank Field ruled himself out a few days before the contest.

Also, there is a page on Wikipedia which keeps track of the contest here. There is a BBC News list of the runners and riders here.

21/06/2006 - 16:00

There are some interesting posts about the race from the Political Betting blog here:

Bercow now becomes an evens firm favourite

The Speakership: Tracking the horse race

The Speaker race: the prices get tighter

Is the battle now down to Young and Beckett?

Iain Dale seems to think Alan Haselhurst could come through the middle. He also has a Youtube clip of Sir Alan in action here. He is a scary man!

21/06/2006 - 23:40

Guido reports that Labour whips are now getting MPs behind Margaret Beckett. This surely makes her almost unbeatable now?

22/06/2009 - 09:30

John Ward gives his views on the election.

22/06/2009 - 09:35

Mike Smithson of Political Betting says that Margaret Beckett is the favourite but asks if a late entrant (they only need to declare by 10:30am today) could act as a spoiler for these odds:

UPDATE: 22/06/2009 - 09:40

The Talking Clock thinks that the new Speaker will be tainted before they even start.

And Stephen Glenn urges MPs not to let Margaret Beckett sit in the Speaker's chair.

UPDATE: 22/06/2009 - 12:50
I am against Margaret Beckett (as are a lot of other Lib Dem bloggers) and for Richard Shepherd.

UPDATE: Just so you know, I am keeping the content of this page updated as we get closer to the election on Monday 22nd June hence it might change.

Finally, it's a bit academic now but here were my thoughts and why it should have been Frank Field (although I did not think it would be!).

Could Harriet Harman follow in Lady T's footsteps?

Just been idly browsing the Labour Party Rule Book (as you do). With the political situation as it is and many talking about Gordon Brown as if his time is almost up my thoughts have turned to what might happen if he does stand down.

Gordon Brown is an extremely proud man and I suspect if he stands down he could not bear the indignity of continuing to serve whilst his colleagues campaign to succeed him. Therefore I expect that he will cease to be PM immediately. If this does happen then the question becomes what happens next. Clause 4B.2e of the Labour Party Rule Book states:

Procedure in a vacancy

(i) When the party is in government and the party leader is prime minister and the party leader, for whatever reason, becomes permanently unavailable, the cabinet shall, in consultation with the NEC, appoint one of its members to serve as party leader until a ballot under these rules can be carried out.

Now it is not guaranteed but surely the obvious choice would be Harriet Harman. She is the only member of the cabinet with any sort of Labour Party derived democratic legitimacy for the role having been elected deputy leader in 2007. If this was to happen then as I understand it she would become Prime Minister, albeit only for a few weeks and thus be our second female PM following in the footsteps of Margaret Thatcher.

One thing that might scupper this is if she wanted to go for the job herself. In which case I expect the NEC would not allow her to fulfill the role she was campaigning to become permanent as it would give her an unfair advantage.

We could be in for some interesting times in the next few weeks....