John Simon Bercow (/ˈbɜːrkoʊ/; born 19 January 1963) is a British politician who served as Speaker of the House of Commons from 2009 to 2019, and as Member of Parliament (MP) for Buckingham between 1997 and 2019. Prior to his election as Speaker, he was a Conservative Party MP.
He served as a councillor in the London Borough of Lambeth from 1986 to 1990 and unsuccessfully contested parliamentary seats in the 1987 and 1992 general elections, before being elected for Buckingham in 1997. Promoted to the Shadow Cabinet in 2001, Bercow held posts under Iain Duncan Smith and Michael Howard. In November 2002, he resigned over a dispute concerning his support for same-sex adoption, but returned a year later, only to be dismissed from the Shadow Cabinet in 2004. Having initially been strongly associated with the right-wing faction of his party, his views shifted over time; by 2009 there were rumours that he would defect to the Labour Party, although Bercow denied these.