A mystery solved - 26 May 2009

When the delegation of British MPs visited Sri Lanka earlier this month, the hostility of the Conservative Party representative was disconcerting. Reports in the Daily Mail indicating that John Bercow is Labour's favoured candidate for the vacant position of Speaker of the House may explain it, as the Peace Secretariat explains in a letter to the editor.

____________

The Editor

Daily Mail

London

Sir,

I must thank you for your article of May 24th entitled ‘Brown’s candidate for Speaker’, since it helps to explain something that had worried us in Sri Lanka.

Earlier this month the Hon. Des Browne led a cross-party delegation of MPs to Sri Lanka. He told us he had selected them carefully, to avoid any difficulties, and certainly the representatives of the Labour Party, the Liberal Democrats and the SDLP seemed without preconceptions in their approach. The exception was the Conservative, John Bercow, who was extremely confrontational from the start, and provoked a strong reaction from our President.

This was surprising because we had assumed that the Conservative Party had a more positive approach to Sri Lanka in its struggle against terrorism. Certainly the pronouncements of those who have engaged closely with us, such as the Hon. Liam Fox and Lord Naseby indicated a sympathetic understanding of the position.

Now however we can understand the strange attitude of Mr Bercow. It would be sad if he were rewarded with the position of Speaker because of hostility to his own party. It would be peculiar if an added attraction for the government were his acting as their hatchet man on the visit to Sri Lanka in which his other colleagues behaved so admirably, asking questions but making clear they did this with goodwill rather than animosity.

Yours sincerely,

Prof Rajiva Wijesinha

Secretary General

Secretariat for Coordinating the Peace Process



The Daily Mail article referred to can be found here: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/

An editorial on the subject from the Mail on Sunday can be found here: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/