JOHN BERCOW was never a comfortable member of Iain Duncan Smith’s team, but the instruction to “go missing” during the adoption debate left him barely able to disguise his disdain.

A Portillista to his core, he had been looking forward to airing his views on the issue of allowing unmarried couples, including gays, to adopt. Mr Bercow had very reluctantly “gone missing” during the last Commons vote on the proposals in May. He sat glumly in his office as MPs debated.

After Mr Duncan Smith’s speech at the party conference in Bournemouth, however, in which the Tory leader proclaimed his determination to change the party’s image, Mr Bercow had truly believed that the position on adoption was about to change, and just in time. Relations with Mr Duncan Smith had been nearing breaking point, friends of Mr Bercow said. His increasingly outspoken comments on gay rights, legalisation of soft drugs and his renunciation of the harsher aspects of the Thatcher legacy were beginning to grate on the leader’s nerves. After Bournemouth Mr Bercow reined in his excesses because he believed that Mr Duncan Smith was serious about modernisation.

When The Times revealed two weeks ago that frontbenchers were to be directed to vote against gay adoption or else “go missing”, Mr Bercow was incredulous. As far as he was concerned, there was now a glaring gap between Tory action and rhetoric.

Mr Bercow and his modernising colleagues on the front bench thought this precisely the issue to make into a shining example of how the Conservatives had changed. Mr Bercow spent two weeks trying to persuade the leader to change his mind. There were long arguments in Shadow Cabinet in which Mr Bercow, backed by Tim Yeo and Damian Green, argued for unmarried adoption. Oliver Letwin, the Shadow Home Secretary, is also understood to have backed Mr Bercow while Michael Howard, Liam Fox and Eric Forth argued strongly that the strict line opposing gay and unmarried adoption should remain unchanged.

Those close to Mr Bercow believe that even if he had backed down over gay adoption he would have resigned over Section 28, an issue that is hanging over Tory heads as the Government plans to resurrect attempts to abolish the rule banning the promotion of homosexuality by councils.

Mr Bercow was once a member of the far-right repatriation committee of the Monday Club, advocating a thinly disguised “send them home” policy towards black and Asian people, a stance to which he looks back in horror. He was the last chairman of the Federation of Conservative Students before it was abolished by Lord Tebbit, then party chairman, for being too right-wing.

Inspired by Enoch Powell, he had joined the Monday Club at the age of 18. He remained a member of the repatriation committee “until it became clear that there were a lot of people at the meetings who were really unpleasant racists and so I left”.

Since making his Commons debut in 1997 as MP for Buckingham Mr Bercow has worked hard to throw off his “nasty” roots. Short and frenetic, he quickly became known as one of the most entertaining backbench speechmakers.

He stunned MPs by voicing his support for lowering the age of consent for gay sex, declaring that he had undergone a conversion on the issue. MPs on all sides of the House sat with open mouths as he uttered the little-heard phrase: “I have changed my mind.”

As a fast-rising member of the Shadow Home Affairs team, he made an astonishing attack on his then boss, Ann Widdecombe, for her zero-tolerance policy on drugs, a stance he regarded as naive and unhelpful. He regularly grabbed the headines with withering personal attacks, such as when he called Cherie Blair “a cross between the First Lady and Lady Macbeth”.

He was unapologetic after The Times disclosed last summer that over the previous parliamentary year he had cost the British taxpayer £565,278 in questions to ministers.

He is also fiercely ambitious and was disappointed to be moved sideways by Mr Duncan Smith from Shadow Chief Secretary to the Treasury to Shadow Minister for Work.

Last summer he became engaged to Sally Illman, 32, a former Labour Party activist who campaigned for Tony Blair in 1997, a relationship that has done much to further his personal and political journey. He sold his beloved constituency cottage because Ms Illman, who is 5ft 11in to his 5ft 6in, kept banging her head on the ceiling.

Yesterday Ms Illman was in the Strangers’ Gallery watching Mr Bercow announce his support for the Government’s Adoption and Children Bill. How much further Mr Bercow is prepared to go to marry his views with those of his sweetheart does not bear thinking about for Mr Duncan Smith.

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