Labour get their Speaker: Tory Bercow

Tory John Bercow was seen as the favourite to replace Michael Martin from virtually the moment he was forced from the Speaker's chair - and none of the plotting, secret whipping and spinning managed to change that. Some of it may even have backfired on the plotters.

Labour had originally backed Bercow, but when it appeared he might fail to get the job because of Tory opposition, there was a powerful campaign to put former minister Margaret Beckett into the job. That clearly infuriated many Labour MPs who simply refused to play ball.

In the end, Labour got its first choice and no doubt the whips will claim it was all an elaborate double bluff. But, whatever the strategies, this result only came after a battle that did little to unite MPs or show the Commons was set on fundamental reform rather than conducting business as usual.

Ten candidates entered the contest but after two rounds of voting it was absolutely clear this was a two horse race between Bercow and fellow Tory Sir George Young, the bicycling baronet as he is universally described. The final vote was a straight fight between them, with Bercow winning by 322 votes to 271.

But the size of the vote for Young indicated the job Bercow has ahead of him with those on his own benches who believe he has become too left-wing, even describing him as the third Labour Speaker in a row.

So the very first thing he did when he took the Chair immediately after the result was announced was to attempt to heal those rifts by promising he would "cast aside all previous political views".

And it is vital he convinces his opponents of that, because if he fails he will face the real possibility that, if the Tories win the next general election in a year's time, there may be a Tory-led attempt to force him from office and make him one of the shortest-serving Speakers ever.

He already faces a major task in reforming parliament in the wake of the expenses scandal which has pitched Westminster into its worst crisis for generations. He promised to be a reforming Speaker and will now have to live up to that while facing powerful competing demands from all sides.

But he also has that other, possibly more risky, task of persuading all sides he really is independent and non-partisan.

David Cameron promised him it "went without saying" that he had the support of the Tory benches. We shall see.