Speakerthon 2009

The House of Commons is currently meeting to decide on their new Speaker. Who will replace Michael Martin in the gown of office in (titularly, at least) the most powerful position in Parliament? The results from the first ballot have come in, and no surprise to see no-one has received anything close to the 50% of the ballot.
The results are:
John Bercow (Conservative): 179 votes
Sir George Young (C): 112 votes
Margaret Beckett (Labour): 74 votes
Sir Alan Haselhurst (C): 66 votes
Sir Alan Beith (Liberal Democrat): 55 votes
Ann Widdecombe (C): 44 votes

Parmjit Dhanda (L): 26 votes
Richard Shepherd (C): 15 votes
Sir Patrick Cormack (C): 13 votes
Sir Michael Lord (C): 9 votes

The four lowest vote getters (all of whom received under 5%) are all knocked out. Surprisingly none of the others dropped out. Surprising only insofar that people like Ann Widdecombe and Sir Alan Haselhurst can hardly expect a huge jump in support considering there are 63 votes at stake (unless they expect to pick up most or all of them). What will be very interesting is to see what happens to Margaret Beckett's support. In the last day or two she had become the bookies favourite to win (at 2/1), and her third place in the opening ballot cannot be what she was hoping for. There was a news story yesterday claiming that Labour was whipping it's vote behind her. If they did, they've done a particularly bad job of it. Another interesting thing to note is that Labour MP's have been perfectly willing to support Conservatives for the Speakership. Labour candidates between them have received only 100 votes.

Another interesting point is what will happen to the Tory vote in later rounds. John Bercow, who is currently in the lead, is the man many Tories dislike intensely. He has moved from the far-right to the far-left of the party, and is known for a willingness to attack his own side. It is likely that much of his support comes from Labour. It will be facsinating to see if the Tories unite around one candidate in the next round in an attempt to keep Bercow out of the Speakers chair...