THE wife of John Bercow, the Commons Speaker, was dismissed from a City public relations firm after claims she he had misled the company about having a degree from Oxford University.

Sally Bercow was sacked by Consolidated Communications in the 1990s after it contacted the university authorities and discovered that she had never completed her finals.

She also faced claims she had used “multiple CVs” each containing different “facts” about background.

Bercow, 39, who is a Labour candidate for a seat on Westminster city council, denies that she lied to the company. However, she admitted a CV did refer to an “upper second” in theology from Oxford.

Bercow, who was then known by her maiden name of Sally Illman, attended Keble College between 1988 and 1990 but did not complete her undergraduate studies.

While she scored an upper second in her first year honour moderations or “mods” examinations, she left the university after just two years.

Having switched to history in her second year, she argued with tutors and performed badly in the subject.

It was reported last night that she made the application to Consolidated Communications in 1994. Some time after she began work there, the company checked up on her academic history and discovered she did not have a degree.

There were angry exchanges and Bercow was fired, it was claimed.

Sources at the company also maintained that Bercow had used “multiple CVs” and there were suspicions that she was doing freelance work for other companies.

A spokesman for Bercow insisted that she had not misled the company. “In the CV she said she was at Oxford from 1988 to 1990. Anyone could work out that that is two years and not three. Nor did the CV say that she completed her degree,” he told the Mail on Sunday. The spokesman denied that Bercow had been disingenuous.

“At no stage in this or any other job application did she claim to have completed a degree at Oxford,” he added.

He also denied she had used multiple CVs, saying: “Like most people applying for different jobs, she emphasised different things on different CVs.”

John Bercow, who sat on the Conservative benches until he was elected Speaker earlier this year, married Sally in 2002. She has been credited with turning the former eurosceptic rightwinger into a more liberal kind of Tory. They now have two sons and a daughter.

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