Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ

Another day, another senior Conservative turning puce after a rebuke from Speaker Bercow. with has been followed today by a stern admonition to Mr Speaker's current bete noir, . Mr Burns, you'll recall, refused to shake Mr Bercow's hand as he took his MP's oath in May. He was heard to describe the Speaker as a "stupid sanctimonious dwarf" in the Chamber in June, and more recently was the author of another dwarf joke at Mr Speaker's expense.

Today at Health Questions, he had a couple of answers cut short in the Speaker's continuing campaign to ensure pointed questions and brief answers, so that the maximum possible number of MPs have a chance to get in. But Mr Bercow was pretty brusque, telling Mr Burns: "Answers have been excessively long winded and repetitive and it mustn't happen again - I've made the position clear and I hope that the minister will learn from that." Mr Burns briefly turned a rather alarming colour before answering his next question.

Yesterday's clash with the Chief Whip was nastier. Several MPs, including and were unhappy with the proposed time limit for Thursday's debate on the orders to increase the cap on university tuition fees. They had made points of order against time limits which, they argued, would not allow sufficient time for backbench MPs to have their say. The programme motion to give effect to the time limits was on the agenda for decision without debate - and when it was read out, there were shouts from the Labour side of "object".

But the shouters had not quite got their timing right and shouted before Mr Bercow had completed reading out the agenda item. So when he had finished reading it out, he invited the objectors to object again... at which Mr McLoughlin took umbrage.

I'm not quite sure why. It's not unusual for a Speaker or Deputy Speaker to help MPs to get their procedure right...but Mr McLoughlin seemed to think the Speaker was inviting objection where there had been none. My reading is that he was doing what Speakers normally do - but the ugly little spat which followed, with Mr McLoughlin first attempting to walk out, then shouting back as the Speaker attempted to rebuke him was pretty unprecedented. In any event, the programme motion for Thursday will now be debated later tonight, after the debate on the EU Bill - and there are murmurs that it might be a debate that stretches into tomorrow morning.

To be sure, it has been a tough week for Mr McLoughlin, with rebellions brewing on tonight's EU Bill and on Thursday's tuition fee vote. With heavyweight Conservative backbencher announcing his intention to defy the government and vote against the higher tuition fees, followed by another Tory, ; along with what promises to be a significant number of Lib Dem rebels, the numbers are tightening and tempers are shortening. And the wounds left by Mr Speaker's waspish tongue will smart for some time to come.

* Incidentally, sharp-eyed colleagues at Today in Parliament have noted the presence of the former Foreign Secretary, David Miliband, in the chamber. Is he going to break the parliamentary silence which followed his defeat in the Labour leadership election with a speech on this bill?

UPDATE: The Speaker has just been asked if he's received any apology from the chief whip. Apparently not - but Mr Bercow said something soothing about how different people would feel "in the cold light of day".

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