Speaker of the House of Commons (United Kingdom) and 2005. At the 2010 general election, Speaker John Bercow faced ten opponents, including Nigel Farage, former leader of UKIP, who obtained 17.4% of the vote, and John Stevens, from the Buckinghamshire Campaign for Democracy party, who obtained 21.4%. Bercow won with 47% of the vote. The Speaker's primary function is to preside over the House of Commons. Traditionally, the Speaker when presiding wore court dress—a black coat with white shirt and bands, beneath a black gown, with stockings and buckled shoes, and a full-bottomed wig. But in 1992 Betty Boothroyd, the first female Speaker, eschewed the wig. Her successor,
Michael Martin, Baron Martin of Springburn Michael Martin, Baron Martin of Springburn Michael John Martin, Baron Martin of Springburn, (3 July 1945 – 29 April 2018) was a British Labour politician who was the Member of Parliament (MP) for Glasgow Springburn from 1979 to 2005, and then for Glasgow North East until 2009. He was elected as Speaker of the House of Commons in 2000, remaining in the office for nine years until his involuntary resignation in 2009. On his election to the post of Speaker in 2000, he was the first Roman Catholic to serve in the role since the Reformation. He resigned from the