ACCORDING to received wisdom in the Tory Party, Speaker John Bercow would have no more legitimacy or support in the House of Commons than his predecessor because, like Michael Martin, he is unable to draw support from across both main parties.

It is true that the vote which put Michael Martin in the Speaker’s chair was horribly partisan. I couldn’t find a single Tory MP who voted for him in the final division. That wasn’t a great start, I admit (and incidentally, I wasn’t elected to parliament for another eight months, so I didn’t have a vote).

But this idea that Michael was finally forced out because of that initial vote in 2000 is patently absurd. For the vast majority of the nine years he occupied the position of Speaker, Michael Martin was unassailable. He was re-elected twice, after the 2001 and the 2005 elections, without opposition or even a murmur of dissent.

And although I don’t believe that his most vociferous detractors in the House, like Douglas Carswell, were acting out of snobbery, Michael was on the receiving end of ignorant snobbery throughout his tenure (the nickname "Gorbals Mick" was coined by a journalist who (a) didn’t know and didn’t care that Michael never lived in Gorbals, (b) assumed that an association with Gorbals was in itself offensive, and (c) believed the the use of an offensive and derogatory term for Roman Catholic was somehow acceptable).

What drove Michael out was not the fact that he had no or little support from the Tory opposition when he was first elected as Speaker, but the perception among some that his political judgment on issues such as expenses and Damian Green was poor. Had he handled either or both of these issues differently, there would have been no move to oust him, irrespective of the vote in October 2000.

So if Bercow wins on Monday, he will be judged not on the breakdown of his support (there won’t be one this time anyway, because it’s a secret ballot), but on how he performs in the job.

And I have no doubt that he is well up to doing such a crucial job with immaculate skill. As Jonathan Isaby has said, Bercow is a parliamentarian to his fingertips. He knows procedure, has a remarkable capacity for retaining facts, would be a master of procedure, and is friendly and capable. He is also an honest and principled man who will be unafraid of leading reform where it’s needed.

So irrespective of how certain Tories will want to speculate about how much support he actually wins, Speaker Bercow would be difficult to undermine, provided he does the job he’s elected to do.

Whether he does actually win or not… ah, there’s the rub. Monday will be very, very interesting, and I’m looking forward to it.