Bercow elected Speaker: MPs ‘getting it’, or prawn-filled curtains?

For many Labour MPs this was a last chance to get one over on Tories they feel are marching into government – a bit like sewing prawns in the curtains.

Margaret Beckett was drafted in as a Stop Bercow candidate but even her supporters couldn’t resist putting one of David Cameron’s least favourite people on the planet into the Speaker’s chair.

Tories were livid, the abuse was flying and Labour MPs were relishing every minute. “Bercow will have homeless people in Speaker’s House by tomorrow,” one Tory said to me – expletives deleted.

For many other Labour MPs it was simply a question of, what would a Young victory look like? Would voters think MPs had – in Parmjit Dhanda’s phrase – “got it”?

They decided a big crisis required a big leap. But the Commons now has a Speaker almost no one in the main opposition party wanted and life – not lately dull round here – just got even more interesting.