The Speaker defends himself

Subject: The Speaker defends himself.

In another place, as they say, the Speaker has risen to defend his decision not to allow the government to seek the approval of the House for a bill which was supposed to have been tabled on Saturday but which, because of an amendment limiting the success of the government bill, they withdrew on Saturday. 
Today Monday the government attempted to  re-table the  bill but were scuppered by the Speaker of the House on the basis of a procedure (dating back 400 years) which prevents the House being burdened by repeated attempts to table the same piece of legislation.
MPs from the government side immediately began jumping to their feet protesting that the Speaker was exceeding his duties and favouring the opponents to the bill by not allowing it to be tabled. And so began a sparkling tit for tat between Speaker Bercow and a number of eminent Tory's, each careful to use parliamentary language but non were match for Bercow.  
I'v said before that I delight in hearing language used like a forensic scalpel, not too deep yet deep enough to score a point,  these eminent wordsmiths, some lawyers, even ex queens councillors, used to debating the pros and cons of a case but Bercow knew his Brief, knew his traditional standing in parliament and was not overawed. Backward and forward went the thinly camouflaged barbs. Did he not understand that this bill was different to the other, was he not aware that he was disrupting government business, was he not favouring one side over the other. And so it went on with Bercow's pithy replays more than enough to dampen the arder of the Conservative MPs who, in effect were hopping mad at having their power usurped in this way.
It's the kind of theatre I like and even more it was a final tour de force for a man who has breathed life into the parliamentary back benches in making Government  much more answerable to Parliament as a whole.