Speaker: My wife's critics are cowards and chauvinists

Commons Speaker John Bercow has issued a passionate defence of his wife Sally, saying that she is not his "chattel" and attacking the "nasty and cowardly" criticism of her Labour politics.

Mr Bercow hit out at those who suggested that his impartiality in Parliament had been undermined by an interview his wife gave to the Evening Standard. Tory MPs were furious that Mrs Bercow talked freely about her wild youth and had attacked David Cameron as a "merchant of spin".

In a programme to be broadcast on Sunday, the Speaker tells BBC Radio 4's Westminster Hour that he is proud that his wife, who wants to be a Labour MP, was independent of him. "It's a very old-fashioned view that suggests that somehow the spouse of the Speaker is an appendage of the Speaker," he said.

Some people were trying to get at him through his wife, and others were driven by "old-fashioned chauvinism", Mr Bercow added.