‘Boris talks a lot’: Speaker Lindsay Hoyle poses with his PARROT named after the PM (who also makes an appearance as a DOG TOY) and reveals Labour leader Starmer could be next to join his parliamentary menagerie, saying ‘it would be nice to have a Keir’
Boris ‘talks a lot’ and has ‘ruffled feathers’, the Commons Speaker revealed today in an indiscreet assessment of … his pet parrot.
Sir Lindsay Hoyle allowed the public a peek into his home life with the colourful flyer named after the Prime Minister, as he posed with his menagerie in his Parliamentary apartment.
The animal-loving Chorley MP also showed off ‘posh cat’ Patrick the Maine Coon for the interview with the Spanish ESE agency.
He and wife Catherine also own tortoise Maggie, rottweiler Gordon and terrier Betty, who are all also named after political heavyweights.
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And although the dogs were not on display, their presence was obvious from an extraordinary prop shown off by the Speaker.
As he held Boris while sitting on a sofa he had in his lap a £17.99 Boris Johnson dog toy.
Sir Lindsay Hoyle allowed the public a peek into his home life with the colourful flyer named after the Prime Minister, as he posed with his menagerie in his Parliamentary apartment.
Although the dogs were not on display, their presence was obvious from an extraordinary prop shown off by the Speaker. As he held Boris while sitting on a sofa he had in his lap a £17.99 Boris Johnson dog chew
The animal-loving Chorley MP also showed off ‘posh cat’ Patrick the Maine Coon for the interview with the Spanish ESE agency
‘They are part of the family. I don’t think Patrick would forgive me if I said ‘you’re not coming to London’, and the same with Boris — he thinks he belongs in London’, Sir Lindsay told Ese.
In July Sir Lindsay revealed Boris has taken to squawking ‘order order’ and ‘lock the doors’ on the London to Lancashire train.
He told The Times: ‘I’ll put the parrot down and he’ll start shouting things like ‘llock the doors. Lock the doorsl’ and people on the train start looking around saying who is shouting lock the doors?’
‘Posh’ Patrick is named for conservative Lord Patrick Cormack.
The late cat Dennis paid tribute to veteran MP Dennis Skinner and the 57-pound Rottweiler Gordon was named in honor of former Labour prime minister Gordon Brown.
Betty the dog ‘is tenacious and lets nothing go by’ just like the only female Speaker of the Commons Betty Boothroyd.
And Maggie the tortoise was named for Margaret Thatcher, because of her ‘hard shell’ and the fact that she, too, is ‘not for turning’.
The Speaker, who was a Labour MP before taking on the politically neutral Speaker’s job last November, also suggested he would be open to increasing his politically themed pet family.
Asked whether his next pet could be called Jeremy or Keir in reference to former Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn and his replacement, the more centrist Sir Keir Starmer, Sir Lindsay said: ‘It depends on the character of the animal. But I think it would be nice to have a Keir.’
Since taking up the position, Hoyle, a man with a reputation for being fair and affable, has transformed how the lower house functions, facilitating remote connections for MPs during the pandemic and for the first time in centuries using digital instead of manual, in-person voting, an approach that has remained largely unchanged since the 14th century.
The House of Commons did not escape the polarizing effects of Brexit, which fed a systemic culture of workplace bullying. Hoyle’s priority was to address this.
“Brexit took a big toll on MPs. The anger, the hatred, the division amongst families. That had a real impact on people,” he said, adding that MPs and parliamentary staff alike had to endure the atmosphere on a daily basis.
Sir Lindsay Hoyle, who took over as speaker from John Bercow in November, drives or takes the train up to his constituency in Chorley, North west England, every week with his wife Catherine and their animals (pictured)
‘Posh’ Patrick is named for conservative Lord Patrick Cormack
The Speaker, who was a Labour MP before taking on the politically neutral Speaker’s job last November, also suggested he would be open to increasing his politically themed pet family
