Elizabeth Day
When did public life become so sweary?
‘My issue with the rash of swearing in public life is there’s just so much of it’
This column is about swearing. Sorry, let me rephrase that: this f---ing column is about f---ing swearing. There, that’s better. I feel more in tune with modern political discourse now that I’ve deployed the F-word for no real reason.
Last week, the House of Commons was the backdrop for a series of potty-mouthed slanging matches. First, Diane Abbott, the shadow home secretary, told Brexit secretary David Davis to “f--- off ” after he attempted to hug her for voting to trigger Article 50.
You might forgive one incidence of unparliamentary swearing… but then we learned that the Tory chief whip Gavin Williamson also indulged in what the tabloids like to call “a foul-mouthed rant”.
Williamson was said to have hurled four-letter words at Tory MPs who had been voicing opposition to leaving the EU. Apparently, he even used the C-word – and I don’t mean “Conservative”.
Then the former education secretary Nicky Morgan piled in, reportedly telling Williamson it was all a “f---ing disgrace”. Not exactly Cicero, is it? As if that weren’t bad enough, Rev Philip Fowles, an Anglican lay preacher who sent an email to MP Anna Soubry calling her “an evil bitch” and hoping that she burned in hell, has been reported to police. When men of the cloth resort to obscenities – a Fowle-mouthed rant, if you will – you know something’s gone awry with the level of our public debate.
I’m not denying that there’s a certain slicing satisfaction that comes with a judiciously deployed swear word in the heat of the moment. Administered correctly, like a potent dosage of penicillin, swearing can defuse an argument and stop it from spreading.
Swearing, we’re told, can trigger a stress-induced analgesia which releases adrenaline and makes us more able to overcome an aggressor (or David Davis). If we swear in moderation, with precision and effectiveness, then it can make us all feel a lot better. It’s a form of therapy. It’s swearapeutic.
But my issue with the recent rash of swearing in public life is that there’s just so much of it. It’s not that I expect politicians to speak solely of moonbeams and unicorns, but I do expect them to conduct themselves with respect for each other and for the role they are elected to play in a functioning democracy.
Why has this happened? I suspect it’s partly because we live in an age of constant information, where attention spans are dwindling and soundbites are required to run to 140 characters or fewer. Language needs to be short and sharp to cut through the white noise. Shock factor is key.
Then there has been the unstoppable flow of reality television into our living rooms. The contestants on Big Brother or Love Island routinely pepper their conversations with swear words, in a way that would have been difficult to imagine a few decades ago.
When theatre critic Kenneth Tynan became the first person to use the F-word on television in 1965, there was a formal apology issued by the BBC, and four separate House of Commons motions, signed by 133 backbenchers.
By contrast, when Celebrity Big Brother contestant Megan McKenna branded a fellow housemate a “ghetto c---” last year, barely anyone blinked. She was issued with a formal warning, allowed to stay in the competition and is now a permanent fixture on The Only Way Is Essex.
Whatever you think of it, reality television has been a formative cultural trend – and not just because we now have a former reality TV star in the White House, one who has, in the noble tradition of the Megan McKennas, boasted in the past of “grabbing women by the p----”.
This, in tandem with the rise of Twitter and other social networks where users can post anonymous bile without fear of retribution, has led to a climate in which swearing is routine. Barriers are broken down; the previously unsayable becomes sayable. In this brave new world of effing and blinding, there’s a sense that you’re not being truly authentic unless you slip out at least three C-words before breakfast.
Our modern politicians seek to connect with voters in the same way that television producers try to attract ever-wider audiences, or anonymous online trolls promote violent rhetoric in the hope of getting a reaction. Discourse has become debased in an attempt to speak the language of the majority. It stems from the mistaken and patronising belief that the parlance of the common man is littered with profanities and poop emoji.
How else to explain that when shadow chancellor John McDonnell was challenged for calling Labour rebels “f------ useless” last year, he responded that it was one of those “normal political descriptions” we’re all so used to hearing?
In the post-Brexit era, when opposing sides are engaged in an increasingly toxic war of words, it feels as if politicians are attempting to outdo each other by screaming not only more loudly but also more rudely than their opposite numbers.
Does it matter? Yes. Because language has consequences.
In 2010, Nathan Kalmoe, an assistant professor at Louisiana State University, did some research into the text of political advertisements. One set was laced with violent metaphors. The other was not. When the violently worded ads were shown to those with an already aggressive disposition, they became markedly more likely to support acts of political violence.
I learned about this research while reading a piece examining the scale of hot-headed political rhetoric in the wake of the murder of MP Jo Cox. This is not a victimless crime.
When our language becomes more brutal, society suffers. It’s time for our politicians to take note. They should stop swearing, start listening and leave the F-word to Big Brother contestants.