Bercow was an ally but is not Speaker material, says Tebbit

Lord Tebbit told the Evening Standard: "He was a very different guy in those days [in the Eighties].

"He was a young student who was very helpful to me in sorting out the problems we had in the Federation of Conservative Students.

"The people who were causing the problems were really anarchists, if you can imagine such a thing.

"Some of them were calling for the legalisation of heroin and other hard drugs, using the arguments of personal liberty.

"Bercow did not buy all that extremist stuff. He was an ally of mine in that sense."

But Lord Tebbit added: "I do not think he would be a particularly good Speaker, however. I think he is too eager to please those in power."

The peer's comments shed light on Mr Bercow's forays into the politics of the hardline Right during the early Eighties, in which he briefly joined the notorious Monday Club, becoming Secretary of its Immigration and Repatriation Committee.

He then rose in the FCS, the main Tory student body, which was dominated by a libertarian faction that continually embarrassed the party leadership.

Lord Tebbit broke up the group and appointed Mr Bercow as vice-chairman of a new student organisation, the Conservative Collegiate Forum.