For someone whose main job is to tell other people to cut the waffle and get on with it, John Bercow is not a man to use one word where five will do. He uses words such as “chuntering” and “eccentric gesticulation” and “expostulating” and “medicament” and “denizens” and “appertaining” and “beetled” and “toddled” and “mellifluous” and “superfluous” and “chap” and “erudition” and “screeds”. In fact he has used them all, and so many, many more, this week alone. Yet they could all be boiled down to one of two instructions: “shut up” or “get on with it”. His verbosity (itself a very Bercow word) drives some people up the…

Source: The Times September 15, 2017 07:52 UTC