The contenders

A 34-day beauty parade began in Parliament yesterday as MPs began sizing colleagues up for the requisite qualities of gravitas, probity and irreproachable expense claims as the most powerful Speakership in decades came up for grabs.

After the opening round of deliberations, there was no obvious frontrunner among MPs still reeling from the exit of Michael Martin only 24 hours after he appeared determined to cling to office.

In an unprecedented 33-second statement, Mr Martin announced that he would stand down on Sunday, June 21, allowing the election for his replacement to take place the next day.

The assassination over, unsentimental MPs began choosing a successor. Some people already thought they knew what would happen immediately. Two hours after the announcement one Conservative MP casually told The Times that he was heading to the bookies to put money on Sir George Young for Speaker. He was disappointed to learn that the odds had already dropped from 25-1 to 4-1.

Sir George, the patrician Old Etonian chairman of the Standards and Privileges Committee and bookies' favourite, refused to comment on his intentions but is believed almost certain to run. The wager way yet be in haste: many Labour MPs, who still hold the bulk of the votes, were expressing doubts that many of their number would support the “bicycling baronet” who runs the MPs' disciplinary panel.

Three backbenchers - John Bercow, a Conservative; Frank Field, for Labour; and Sir Alan Beith, a Liberal Democrat - were bolder than Sir George. They did not, as Ann Widdecombe suggested, wait for the final rites to be served on Mr Martin before making clear to colleagues they hoped to stand. Mr Bercow was the most prominent campaigner. He was spotted outside one of the Commons' subsidised bars on Monday night appealing for backers- even before Mr Martin had agreed to stand down.

Yesterday MPs in the Members' Lobby suggested Mr Bercow had achieved his aim of becoming the front-runner. Labour MPs from every wing of the party, including John Mann and Paul Flynn and members of the Whips' Office, had come out in support of the former rightwinger and member of the Monday Club.

Within hours there was “stop Bercow” counter-briefing from Tory MPs, many of whom hold Mr Bercow in low regard for his co-operation with Gordon Brown after he became Prime Minister.

“He would not get more than a couple of votes from our side,” said a former Tory whip, bitterly.

Labour MPs were not to be outdone in briefing against their own side. They began their own “stop Frank” campaign, urging their colleagues not to support someone who had become such a high-profile critic of the Prime Minister. The irony of Labour MPs criticising one of their own while the Tories dished the dirt on their colleague was lost on few.

Other MPs rushed to quell speculation by ruling themselves out. David Davis, the former Shadow Home Secretary, Vince Cable, the Liberal Democrat Treasury spokesman, and Tony Wright, the chairman of the public administration committee, all announced that they had no intention of standing in order to stop the rumours.

The announcement from Mr Cable was greeted with some suspicion by allies who believe there may yet be a spontaneous attempt to persuade him to change his mind if no better candidates emerge. He simply said he was “happy doing what I do, and I am going to stick at it”. His high public profile means that he would be seen as a candidate capable of taking the tough decisions to clean up Parliament.

Many MPs said yesterday that they believed the identity of the eventual candidate for Speaker is unlikely to be among the early front-runners.

Despite the hotheaded views of some of Labour's more tribal MPs, wiser heads appeared to have conceded that the next Speaker will not come from their own benches.

The next Commons Speaker will be the first to be selected by secret ballot. Mr Martin, like his predecessors, was chosen in the division lobbies with each MP's vote registered in Hansard. Not only did this system hand incoming Speakers a list of those who had failed to support them, but it also gave party Whips greater control over the process.

Now the election for Speaker will take place all in a single day, with nominations formally submitted between 9.30am and 10.30am. Candidates will make hustings speeches, and then votes will take place. Voting will happen in rounds, with the least popular candidate eliminated in each round until someone gets more than 50 per cent of the vote.

The unique circumstances of the election could mean the position becomes a poisoned chalice. One Tory MP, who is seen as an outsider for the Speakership, suggested that this powerful position is not one to be coveted. “It will be like being made garrison commander in Stalingrad in the winter of 1942,” he said.

Times Recommends

• Milk: do we need a dairy godmother?
• DIY: the women doing it for themselves
• First double portrait of Princes unveiled