I can't help thinking that the election of John Bercow as Speaker is a dreadful mistake. I rather admire him as an MP - his speech on why he had changed his mind and was supporting the right for gay people to adopt was one of the best I can recall in the last ten years (up there with Robin Cook's resignation speech and Tony Blair's speech before the vote for the Iraq war in 2003). He did a good job at knifing the over-promoted Iain Duncan Smith as a backbencher, too: anyone sensible in the Tory party must have been raging at IDS's lamentable display as leader.

But as Speaker? Bercow is far too inexperienced (having held no ministerial posts and as far as I can tell no select committee posts). He did contribute the Bercow Review on children with communication difficulties. But this simply isn't enough top-level experience. Also, he appears to have riled his (former) Conservative colleagues with the speed and depth of his political damascene conversion.

Whatever the reasons for this (and I'm sure that there's more to it than meets the eye), he does not seem to command the respect and confidence of the whole house. If, as has been alleged, he has been chosen because he is the most Labour-style Tory out there (Lib Dems not being acceptable because Labour knows it will lose the next general election and is jealously guarding its two-party priviliges), then the Speaker has been chosen for his political affiliations rather than competence.

We're right back where we were with Michael Martin.

(The other possible explantion for his election - that he looks young and "dynamic" and "reforming" - is too depressing for words. Surely he can't..? Surely...?)