House of Commons speaker John Bercow has taken up the position of a nursery-school teacher, as he attempts to beat back the beastly boys and girls shouting and screaming over one another during the half-hour session of comedy that is Prime Minister's Questions.

The very fact that I am describing PMQs as "comedy" is troubling - an opinion that Mr. Bercow appears to share, given that he has called on various occasions for a reform of the weekly session.

During PMQs, Ed Miliband and other members of the opposition direct questions to the Prime Minister. Firstly, they ask him what his diary looks like for that day, before getting into the nitty gritty questions you will see so often featured on BBC News later that day. This is that time when we, as voters, get some representation. Our elected MPs stand and raise the concerns of their constituents to the PM and demand his response.

However, although this all appears democratic, Mr. Bercow has written to the leaders of the three main parties, inviting them to discuss how to reform the increasingly embarrassing affairs that PMQs is becoming.

John Bercow has warned that if Prime Minister's Questions continues in the fashion that it is, then it will fall to the standard of "yobbery and public school twitishness". Furthermore, he argues that the way in which MPs conduct themselves in the House of Commons is repelling women from becoming more involved in politics, and is an increasingly bad picture to send to the public.

PMQs was first televised on 21 November 1989, an event that even Margaret Thatcher was glad to be out of: "it is ordeal enough when you are speaking in the Commons...without television, but when you have got television there, if you are not careful, you freeze...it is going to be a different House of Commons, but that is that".

For many, the step of televising PMQs was a step forward for democracy, as the public were now able to hold the participants to account. Furthermore, it added a transparency to the mysterious goings-on in parliament; something that should have encouraged voter participation. However, this appears to be backfiring immensely.

In a recent study conducted by Ipsos MORI, they found that 47% of people agree that PMQs is “too noisy and aggressive”, a remark just 15% disagree with. Far more worryingly, 33% say it puts them off politics, and just 12% said that it makes them proud of our Parliament.

This is a deeply worrying set of figures for democracy. If people are increasingly being put off politics because of the conduct of their representatives at parliament level, then the country will continue to see falling levels of public participation in politics. The people we hear jeering and booing at their peers across the room are supposed to be there, representing us; putting forward our concerns to those at decision-making level in order to provide us with a better society.

Indeed, the shambles that PMQs has now become makes it an almost unheard of news piece that a Bill has been passed through parliament. The recent agreement to ban smoking in a car with a child on board came as a complete shock to me - “something got through Parliament? Wow!” The other troubling remark made by Mr. Bercow is the one about women in Parliament. He argues that PMQs is a “testosterone-driven” affair that puts women off getting involved. This situation is made all the worse when it was found that female MPs are being harassed in Commons.

A survey carried out by Professor Joni Lovenduski, Margaret Moran MP and researcher Boni Scones, discovered shocking cases of sexist discrimination against female MPs.

Pat Glass, MP for North West Durham, claimed that herself and women from the North of England were being mocked for their accents, saying “they [male MPs] start shouting about it to put you off”.

“The hardest thing I have had to cope with since becoming an MP is the macho culture of the House of Commons”, she explained. Thus, it appears John Bercow’s claims are correct: Commons is too aggressive, too masculine, and, if it continues, could well see a complete estrangement with the public.

Evidence of this macho-culture are clear in the findings published on the BBC website of the Speaker’s commonly used “crowd-control” tactics. Phrases such as “too much noise”, “the House must come to order”, and “calm yourself” have been directed towards MPs a total of 112 times - those are figures from February…last year!

Therefore, it is clear that the public and those within HoC alike are appalled at the behaviour of our representatives. The male-dominated, childish behaviour of those in parliament are increasingly causing people to hit the off-button on politics. Tuning out voters is a threat to democracy itself. Nobody wants to see an MP being told to put “the lion back in its den”, or advised to take up yoga. What we want is professionalism.

Democracy is in crisis, as we know. The responses of Nick Clegg and Ed Miliband to Bercow agreeing to meet for talks is encouraging. Conservative backbenchers, on the other hand, disagree - as they would - and Downing Street has simply said that the Prime Minister would “consider them [reform ideas] very carefully”.

The time for consideration is, I fear, running out. Politicians need to actively make a change to the current set-up in the HoC if we are to see more public interest in politics, increased participation and better representation for people from all backgrounds, not just the ones with the loudest voice.