Scorn (11 page)

1877 Speaker: ‘It is not proper to impute what of straightforwardness or courage to any Member or to imply that a Member was not actuated by the feelings of a gentleman.'

1878 ‘damnable character'

1880 Speaker: ‘It is not in accordance with Parliamentary usage to say that members of this House are on the side of Atheism, irreligion and immorality.'

1881 ‘poltroon'

1884 ‘seditious blasphemer'
‘ruffianism'

1885 ‘insolence'
‘indecent purpose'

1887 ‘damned lot of cads'
‘bad, mean, pettifogging' (of the House of Lords)

1888 ‘Judas'

1897 ‘tommy rot'

1900 ‘language of the pot-house'

1901 ‘fool'
‘orgy of unbridled ruffianism'

1902 ‘pharisees and hypocrites'

1906 ‘the offscourings of Bristol' (of constituents)

1908 ‘vicious and vulgar'
‘coward and a cad'

1910 ‘half pantaloon and half highwayman'

1911 ‘traitor'

1914 ‘swindlers' (of government)
‘vulgar cad'

1924 ‘leader of a murder gang' (of a minister)

1926 ‘the minister of death' (of Minister of Health)
‘a mind on all fours with a London County Council sewer'

1928 ‘Pecksniffian cant'

1931 ‘blethering'
‘impertinent dog'
‘dirty rot'
‘sponger'

1939 ‘bunch of robbers'

1944 ‘unspeakable blackguard'

1946 ‘source of infection'

1949 ‘freelance demagogue'

1950 ‘yahoos opposite'

1951 ‘rabble', ‘stooge'

1955 ‘nosey parker'

1956 ‘murderer'
‘traitorous defeatist'

1958 ‘I'll see you outside'
‘stinker'

1959 ‘dunderhead'
‘smart Alec'

1960 ‘oafish'

1961 ‘lousy'
‘slippery'
‘get back to the gutter'
‘white livered'

1965 ‘Quisling'
‘sheer, concentrated humbug'

1968 ‘A British Herr Himmler'
‘scoundrel'

1969 ‘mean bastards'

1972 ‘the Right honourable cheat'

1975 ‘bunch of damned hypocrites'
‘buffoon'
‘grubby and squalid'

1976 ‘idiots'
‘racialists'
‘hooligan'

1978 ‘arch confidence trickster'
‘ignorant bigot'
‘the biggest basket of them all' (of Prices minister)

1980 ‘mass murderer'

1983 ‘two-faced'

1984 ‘supercilious git'
‘mealy-mouthed hypocrisy'
‘a load of bullshit'
‘pompous sod' (Dennis Skinner of David Owen. Skinner offered to withdraw ‘pompous')

1985 ‘creeps'

1986 ‘bollocks'
‘cretin'
‘twerp'
‘boring old twat'
‘wimp'

1987 ‘bugger all'
‘giggling idiot'
‘go to hell'
‘arrogant bastards'
‘fat bounder' (of Nigel Lawson)
‘bumptious balloon' (of Nigel Lawson)
‘Pakistani umpire'

1988 ‘bugger'
‘political shyster'
‘tweak his goolies'
‘poached bullshit'
‘sneak'
‘berk'
‘wicked'
‘cheat'
‘objectionable lout'

1989 ‘freak'
‘barmy'

1990 ‘ignorant twat'
‘poppycock, bunkum and balderdash'
‘scabs'
‘freeloading scroungers'
‘paid hack'
‘arrogant little shit'
‘spiv'
‘parasite'
‘Mr Oil Slick'
‘front bench yobo'
‘jerk'
‘kinnocchio'

1991 ‘trifler and opportunist'

1992 ‘little squirt'
‘like a 50p piece: two-faced and seven-sided'
‘hack, obedient, lickspittle Tory member'
‘clever little sod'
‘stool pigeons'

1994 ‘shifty' (when used to describe a member but allowed for a policy)
‘unctuous slob'
‘ethically challenged'
‘prat'
‘stupid cow'

1995 ‘dimwit'
‘nitwit'

1998 ‘gormless alien'
‘the honourable anorak'
‘piddling' (the alternative offered, ‘two-bit', was also ruled out of order)

1999 ‘riff raff' (compare with
page 152
‘waifs and strays', 1996, which was challenged and deemed in order)
‘bastard' (when used to describe a policy rather than a person)

2000 (to do) ‘sod all'
‘Whips' narcs'

2001 ‘con man'

2002 ‘coward'

2004 ‘little sod'

2009 ‘monster' (when referring to another Member)

2010 ‘pipsqueak'

2012 ‘sod'

2013 ‘conman'

2015 ‘idiot'
‘crap' was allowed in July 1991, but ruled out of order just 5 months later. In 2015, it was allowed again, on the grounds that the Member was reporting the opinion of a constituent: ‘… the school had become a haven for every crap teacher in the north-east'.

ALLOWED

1931 ‘nonsensical twaddle' (Speaker: Use of nonsensical ‘a matter of taste'. No judgement on twaddle)
‘bunk'
‘humbug'

1936 ‘tripe'

1947 ‘clear your ears out'

1949 ‘official stooge'
‘Quisling'

1953 ‘unclean'

1957 ‘near treachery'
‘bribery'

1958 ‘blather'

1959 ‘a card sharper and confidence trickster'

1966 ‘tame hacks'

1968 ‘go back to Moscow'

1970 ‘carpet bagger'

1971 ‘shower' (the Government)

1978 ‘political thug'

1985 ‘snivelling little git'

1986 ‘a Government of petty crooks'
‘old Etonian twerp'
‘Gauleiter'
‘pathetic Member'
‘wally'
‘weak-minded'

1987 ‘a boot up the backside'
‘arrogant little basket'

1988 ‘wet-necked twits'
‘two-faced as hell'

1989 ‘be quiet, silly old fool'
‘absolute bull'
‘fathead'
‘utter crap'
‘street hooligan'
‘yankee lickspittle'
‘freaks' (as a description of opposing members. In the same year, the singular was ruled out of order as this was deemed to reflect upon an individual member)

Since 1990:
‘twit'
‘don't be so bloody stupid'
‘bloodthirsty louts'
‘too bloody mean'
‘you mean and silly woman'
‘shut up, you old windbag'
‘[the minister] does not give a fart'
‘witless, blind and stupid …'
‘Polly Pot in No 10' (of Mrs Thatcher)

1990 ‘pig's bladder on a stick'

1991 ‘bloodthirsty louts' (again, allowed as it did not refer to a particular individual)

1992 ‘mad fool, loony half-mad cretin'
‘millionaire's mammy boy' (ruled ‘not wholly unparliamentary')

1995 ‘twaddle'

1996 ‘chancer'
‘waifs and strays'
‘school sneaks'
‘pygmy'

1997 ‘claptrap'

1998 ‘Sweet FA' (Mr Speaker confessed to be ‘not certain whether this was unparliamentary, but most undesirable')
[speaking] ‘with forked tongue'

1999 ‘Stepford Wives' (as a description of opposing members)
‘Quislings' (the ruling in 1965 outlawing the same insult was on the singular which made all the difference)
‘to blackmail' (allowed as the speaker was accusing the Government of doing the deed, not an individual Member)

2000 ‘chopping off their goolies'
‘villain of the piece'

2002 ‘Oh, shit' (when used in quotation)
‘barmy'

2003 ‘getting well and truly shafted' (when used as a quotation from a constituent)
‘would have been well duffed up in that debate' (no admonition from the Chair when the speaker claimed
this to be unparliamentary)
‘hypocritical sophistry', ‘deceit' and ‘lies' (all on the grounds that they were not being used to refer to individual Members but to opponents collectively)
‘creating a great deal of wind' (criticising an opponent's line of argument)

2004 ‘knackered'
‘a mafia' (as a description of an opposing party)

2005 ‘bonkers'
‘bunkum'

2006 ‘total cock-up'
‘toe-rags' (used to describe fraudsters, not other members)
‘claptrap'
‘culturally bananas'

2007 ‘shit' (when used as a noun)
‘nincompoop'

2013 ‘bigot'
‘untrue' (when accusing a Member of giving untrue information. It was permitted as, the chair explained, ‘[while] it would be wrong to say that the shadow Minister had intentionally misled the House … to argue that he does not understand the matter and therefore says things that are untrue is not unparliamentary'.)

2014 ‘puerile and superficial' (when referring to a Member's views rather than to their personality)

2015 ‘a couple of Muppets' (referring to other Members)

2016 ‘wazzock' (in a debate on whether US Presidential candidate Donald Trump should be banned from
coming to Britain, allowed presumably because the speaker was not referring to a fellow Member)

And finally:
‘that amiable dumb bell' (of Sir Geoffrey Howe).

The mild-mannered Sir Geoffrey Howe, Margaret Thatcher's first Chancellor of the Exchequer and later Foreign Secretary, finally turned against her in November 1990. His resignation speech is quoted at some length below, not for the savagery of its invective – the restrained prose makes for a less than scorching read – but for its effect, which was the more explosive in coming from a much-put-upon and undemonstrative politician. Many would trace Thatcher's downfall back to this Commons moment, which to witness was stunning …

[Sir Geoffrey reflects positively on his time as Margaret Thatcher's first Chancellor of the Exchequer, but goes on to say that the Prime Minister is failing to understand Britain's relationship with European allies] …
The European enterprise is not and should not be seen like that – as some kind of zero sum game … [a] … nightmare image sometimes conjured up by my right hon. Friend, who seems sometimes to look out upon a continent that is positively teeming with ill-intentioned people, scheming, in her words, to ‘extinguish democracy', to ‘dissolve our national identities' and to lead us ‘through the back-door into a federal Europe'. How on earth are the Chancellor and the Governor of
the Bank of England, commending the hard ecu as they strive to, to be taken as serious participants in the debate against that kind of background noise? … It is rather like sending your opening batsmen to the crease only for them to find, the moment the first balls are bowled, that their bats have been broken before the game by the team captain … but the task has become futile: trying to stretch the meaning of words beyond what was credible, and trying to pretend that there was a common policy when every step forward risked being subverted by some casual comment or impulsive answer. The conflict of loyalty … to my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister … and … to what I perceive to be the true interests of the nation, has become all too great. I no longer believe it possible to resolve that conflict from within this Government. That is why I have resigned. In doing so, I have done what I believe to be right for my party and my country. The time has come for others to consider their own response to the tragic conflict of loyalties with which I have myself wrestled for perhaps too long.
Sir Geoffrey Howe, resigning from the government

How can one best summon up the exquisite, earnest tedium of the speech of Sir Geoffrey Howe in yesterday's South African debate? It was rather like watching a much-loved family tortoise creeping over the lawn in search of a distant tomato.
David McKie on Sir Geoffrey Howe

He is not only a bore, but he bores for England.
Malcolm Muggeridge on Sir Anthony Eden

Muggeridge, a garden gnome expelled from Eden, has come to rest as a gargoyle brooding over a derelict cathedral.
Kenneth Tynan on Malcolm Muggeridge

Harold Wilson was one of the men who ruined post-war Britain. He was a small posturing visionless politician, personally pleasant to his friends and even his enemies, amusing, irreverent and apparently kind. But his public work was a long strung-out disaster, overlaid by the impression at the time that it was at least dextrously accomplished.
Hugo Young

I'd like it translated.
Harold Macmillan during an address to the UN General Assembly after Nikita Khrushchev took off his shoe and banged the heel on the table

It was almost impossible to believe he was anything but a down-at-heel actor resting between engagements at the decrepit theatres of minor provincial towns.
Bernard Levin on Harold Macmillan,
The Pendulum Years

Greater love hath no man than this, that he lay down his friends for his life.
Jeremy Thorpe after Harold Macmillan's 1962 Cabinet reshuffle

One can never escape the suspicion, with Mr Macmillan, that all his life was a preparation for elder statesmanship.
Frank Johnson on Harold Macmillan, in
The Times

SIR ALEC DOUGLAS-HOME: Tell me, Mr Chairman, what do you think would have happened if Mr Khrushchev had been assassinated and not President Kennedy?
CHAIRMAN MAO: I do not believe Mr Onassis would have married Mrs Khrushchev.
Exchange at an official dinner

He is going around the country stirring up apathy.
William Whitelaw on Harold Wilson

If ever he went to school without any boots it was because he was too big for them.
Ivor Bulmer-Thomas on Harold Wilson's claims to an impoverished childhood

From Lord Hailsham we have had a virtuoso performance in the art of kicking a friend in the guts. When self-indulgence has reduced a man to the shape of Lord Hailsham, sexual continence involves no more than a sense of the ridiculous.
Reginald Paget MP on Lord Hailsham, following the Profumo scandal

‘What have you done?' cried Christine,
‘You've wrecked the whole party machine!
‘To lie in the nude may be rude,
‘But to lie in the house is obscene!'
Anonymous on John Profumo, about the Profumo scandal