KEEPING A CIVIL TONGUE

The tone of public debate has sharply deteriorated in recent years. Insult is piled upon innuendo, issues are personalised and hence diminished, rantings and ravings are substituted for rational debate. These lapses from polite behaviour offend the ladies, alarm the children and frighten the horses. A common enough rebuke 50 years ago was “Kindly keep a civil tongue in your head” nowadays more seen in the breach than in the observance. If educated people have one duty it is to maintain standards. Readers, rally to the cause!

Alex Salmond tries to throw his weight about

In Britain, we are all reasonably familiar with some prominent serial offenders. Alex Salmond, bully-boy erstwhile leader of the SNP, whose noisy mob besieged Nigel Farage chanting moronically “Nigel, you’re a bawbag, Nigel, you’re a bawbag!” (to translate: bawbag= ballbag=scrotum) lost it in the Commons a few days ago in a heated clash on a procedural ruling by the emollient Deputy Speaker. Salmond’s tirade was typically disgraceful and inappropriate.

Manic Amber Rudd

Dennis Skinner, a grumpy perennial

 

Other parties, alas, have their own attack-dogs. Amber Rudd, the new Home Secretary, teetered on the frontiers of acceptability with her exaggerated advocacy of the Remain cause during the Brexit campaign. Labour is an emasculated force at present under the bizarre leadership of Jeremy Corbyn, but Dennis Skinner, the tantrum-flying notorious Beast of Bolsover still lurks around Westminster though Ed Balls, the head-banging lieutenant of Ed Miliband, lost his seat in 2015 and later charmed rather than alarmed us as a contestant in Strictly Come Dancing!

I do not want to be lily-livered about the give-and-take of our adversarial political culture. Issues will be debated passionately and little quarter given to one’s opponent. Yet there are limits to the language that can be deployed. In a much more deferential age in the 1940s, Nye Bevan caused outrage in Tory ranks by describing them as “Lower than Vermin” provoking Winston Churchill to label Bevan “A squalid nuisance” – indeed later Bevan, a guest, was kicked down the steps of White’s Club by an irate Tory member, who immediately had to resign. I acknowledge that it is impossible to expect a return to Victorian days when Prime Ministers could be honoured by flowers. Eagle-eyed Gladstone was called “Sweet William” after the modest cottage-garden bloom and worldly Disraeli was associated with the unlikely Primrose by none other than Victoria herself. Mind you, The Darling Buds of (Theresa) May does have a ring about it.

"Sweet William" Gladstone?

"Primrose" Disraeli?

A blue-print for civilised political debate can be found in the regular TV newspaper reviews undertaken by Andrew Pierce, consultant editor of the Daily Mail and Kevin Maguire, associate editor of the Mirror. They exchange many a hard and biting blow as their political views are far apart but they do not interrupt each other, raise voices or talk over their antagonist. There is a strong undercurrent of friendly banter which makes their appearances very watchable.

Kevin Maguire and Andrew Pierce debating in a civilised fashion

Civilised debate was also once the norm in the United States, but the arrival of President Trump has changed the atmosphere there. I know there is much to criticise in the Trump buffoonery and posterity will hardly believe that the trumpet (a noisy brassy instrument) and trumpery (useless material) were not named after Donald J. But give the guy a break. His ban on refugees and travellers from certain countries was telegraphed in his campaign and given the terrorist threat, many incumbents would do much the same. It probably plays well with a majority of the electorate.

Donald Trump, a target for hysterical abuse

The anti-Trump agitation is wholly over-blown, hysterical and counter-productive. The bi-coastal Establishment will need to adapt to Trump. He is a populist not a racist nor Fascist (despite his invocation of Charles Lindbergh’s isolationist America First of 1941) and his rough edges will be smoothed over with the demands of office. The noisy street demonstrators, the sore loser Democrats and the unrestrained social media need to calm down: the slurs aimed at Melania and the mockery of 11-year old Barron are simply despicable. I advise them all to Keep a Civil Tongue in their Heads!

SMD

10.02.17

Text copyright © Sidney Donald 2017