Shaun Ley's week

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By Shaun Ley Presenter, BBC Radio 4's World at One

It seems to have been a week of re-positioning at Westminster.

From the choice of a new Speaker to what the Conservatives described as a "u-turn in slow motion" over the terms of reference for the Iraq inquiry, it has felt as if we are standing still whilst the world moves around us.

Mr Bercow has undergone some repositioning himself

I mention Westminster, because - in a bit of repositioning of our own - we have spent more time down there than usual over the last few days.

As well as our regular Wednesday trip for Prime Minister's Questions, The World At One was broadcast from Westminster on each of the previous two days.

On Monday, it was because of the election of the new Speaker. Our guests were all going in to the Millbank studio for us, so it made sense for me to, as well.

The election of John Bercow involved quite a lot of repositioning. People in his own party said he had been doing it for years; sitting on the Tory benches but flirting with the men and women opposite; at different times criticising his own party's positions on gay adoption and overseas development; and taking up an invitation from Gordon Brown to chair an inquiry into special needs education.

Caligula's contempt

On the last point, it is worth remembering that as a parent he has a direct interest in that subject, and his colleague Patrick Mercer also did some work for Mr Brown.

Even so, it is difficult to exaggerate the degree to which Mr Bercow is loathed in his own, now former, party.

This is offered as one reason why so many Labour MPs voted for him.

If he really wants to make friends, especially among Tory MPs, then he could do worse than tearing up the convention that privy counsellors (the Right Honourables) get called before more humble backbenchers.

The most cynical interpretation is that they have given up on the chances of winning the next election, and so wanted to lumber a Prime Minister Cameron with the Speaker he would like least.

Or as the columnist Simon Heffer put it, they have behaved with the contempt demonstrated by Caligula when he considered making his horse a consul, except the MPs managed what the Emperor did not - installed him.

Speaker Bercow has responded with repositioning of his own, although this time in accordance with custom.

He announced on taking office that he would renounce all ties to his old party (the wags suggested he had done that long before) and adopt the tradition of complete impartiality.

Buggins turn

That will help, but if he really wants to make friends, especially among Tory MPs, then he could do worse than tearing up the convention that privy counsellors (the Right Honourables) get called before more humble backbenchers.

Sometimes it is because they know more about a subject, but more often than not, it is buggins turn. Sit and watch BBC Parliament for a few days and you will begin to see a pattern.

Why would this particularly please the people he used to sit with on the Conservative backbenches?

Speaker rival Parmjit Dhanda questioned whether MPs really 'got' the expenses issue

By my reckoning there are only just over two dozen Tory Rt Hons, compared to more than 80 on the Labour side (the product of having one party in government for twelve years, whilst most of those sworn of the Privy Council in the previous 18 years of Tory government have long since departed).

So if he shakes up that tradition, there could be quite a lot of repositioning of who gets to speak and how often.

Our other day at Westminster was all rather last minute.

We bid regularly to speak to the prime minister (along with every other programme or publication you can think of), and Tuesday's "yes" from Number Ten prompted a hasty Tube journey from Television Centre to the BBC's Millbank Studios.

Under oath

By all accounts, Gordon Brown was more relaxed than he has been of late, and there was time for a few pleasantries before we went on air.

I even got a glimpse of an unforced grin (we were unmolested by TV cameras) when he picked up on my mistaken reference to "general election" when I meant the European and local ones.

A 20 minute live interview with the prime minister is a bit of a risk (and some of you sent emails saying you eventually switched off because it was heavy going over lunch).

But it is rare these days to hear a political interview at that length, and sometimes it can be revealing. I hope those of you who stayed with us found it so.

Could it be that The Speaker they really wanted was another man of diminutive stature who also had a relatively high opinion of his own abilities ? I'm thinking of the late Robin Cook

It also delivered further evidence of repositioning. Mr Brown was at pains to argue that changes over the Iraq inquiry were simply the result of responding to Sir John Chilcot's advice (he's the man who'll be chairing it).

And he gave an interesting hint that an alternative to witnesses taking an oath was being sought.

But it was his cabinet colleagues who muddied the waters. On Wednesday's programme, the Secretary of State for Wales Peter Hain held the government line on the question of whether the inquiry should be allowed to apportion blame.

Hours later in the Commons though, the Foreign Secretary David Miliband said it could.

A modest-sized Labour rebellion ensued, with MPs who had be dubbed the "usual suspects" on Iraq voting with the opposition.

Slightly more surprising was the presence in that group of Parmjit Dhanda.

Although he voted against the war, he was regarded as sufficiently loyal to subsequently be made a minister.

He was a surprise entrant in the contest for The Speakership, although the fairly radical agenda for reform he advanced ruffled enough feathers to prevent him getting the support of many of his colleagues.

I do wonder, though, whether Labour MPs threw their weight behind John Bercow as an act of guilty expiation.

Could it be that The Speaker they really wanted was another man of diminutive stature who also had a relatively high opinion of his own abilities? I'm thinking of the late Robin Cook.

In a significant act of repositioning, Mr Cook (one of those figures we used to call the soft left who went along with the New Labour project, although they were never really part of it) resigned from the cabinet over the Iraq war.

That made him, until his premature death, a potentially dangerous presence on the backbenches.

As Chris Mullin's recently published diaries reveal, he also spotted that MPs' expenses could cause trouble: "We are in a jam … Few members have yet tumbled to the juggernaut heading their way."

Like Robin Cook, John Bercow combines both a reverence for the institution of the Commons with a streak of radicalism.

If the ghost of "Red" Robin haunts Speaker's House, it could be the Cook agenda that triumphs after all.