Former ‘wet’ Conservative MP-turned-journalist Matthew Parris once published a book called Scorn upon the fine, age-old art of public insults, including those of a political nature, such as Disraeli’s opinion of Gladstone: “He has not a single redeeming defect.” That’s certainly not something you could say of today’s most prominent political insult-magnet Nigel Farage, who is described by one invective-hurler in Parris’s text as being “100% political herpes… Back in six months whatever you do.” If Nigel was wise, he could use that as his new campaign slogan when out battling Count Binface in the Clacton by-election to show the Establishment he will never allow them to get him down permanently. Regrettably, Nigel probably will not do that, as he appears to have a distinct aversion towards taking any public insults at all: when a woman called him a “wanker!” from a car recently, he gleefully posted a video of her crashing the vehicle immediately afterwards, calling it “instant karma”.
Another affront contained within Parris’s book is one made against himself by the more truly odious Alastair Campbell, describing him as “the little shit Parris, with his perma-smirk”. If Parris was the “little shit” here, then I’d suggest Campbell was the rather bigger arsehole that must have laid him: Matthew can include that response for free in the next edition of his book, if he likes.
I do admire Parris’s attitude towards being insulted: he couldn’t care less, considering it the price politicians
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So what this article told me is that some people care less about personal insults than do others. I think I might even claim that I knew this already.
The most amusing bit was O’Brien calling someone else ‘unflushable’. Oh, the lack of self-awareness.
The name missing in this tour of political insult and incitement to murder is that of Dominic Cummings. He predicted the total attack on Farage by the establishment, left right and centre, and now by the right wing media as we see. Reform has had political violence and personal violence thrown at it for year while the political class and grown up media look away half smiling. The Uniparty is complicit in this climate of hate being developed as a way of trying to suffocate Reform’s ‘popular’/ist message of rejecting the globalist ending of democracy. Cummings accurately said that absolutely all means would be used to damage Reform and Farage, he is such a threat to the Blairite establishment, law, education, policiing, health, migration, etc. Mr Tucker is disingenuous in splitting the educational bias being poured into children from the cultural and media agitprop, of which he now seems to a part.
Lots of leftie activists report to the police and Ofcom etc all sorts of absurd infringements of Woke, eg Allison Pearson. Trigger warnings are used by the Woke networks to suffocate eg Conservative Woman and stop advertising in GB News, the grotesquely named Hope not Hate is dong… Read more »
But note Matthew v.21-22.
“Will no one rid me of this turbulent priest?” is a quote attributed to Henry II of England in 1170. While the quote was not expressed as an order, it prompted 4 knights to travel to Canterbury, where they killed Archbishop Becket due to a dispute between crown and church.
We don’t have knights but we do have deranged Antifa and Islamist types who swim in a sea of cultish views and see opposing views as grave insults. They are encouraged in this by those in power or in their ‘communities’ to view their opponents as beyond the pale and rev up the cultists. In fact they are assisted in their worldview by police who arrest and those who have transgressed and by the wider cancel culture if they have the wrong opinions. Is it any wonder some of them make insults but encouraged to feel ‘unsafe’ then make threats and in some cases carry out acts of violence?
Our current cultural milieu justifies extreme behaviour from the cultists. Until this changes those with dissident opinions should use the current ‘safety’ culture against them, even if it just exposes the hypocrisy of our current situation.
i’m a free speech absolutist, so all this ‘shades of grey’ umming and ahing feels like a fools errand to me. We either have free speech or we don’t. Say something stupid to the wrong person, expect to loose some teeth… of course the responding person needs to consider if they want to be done for assault
Taking insults against Farage in isolation, is disingenuous. It is the constant flow and their nature – Hitler, Fascist, danger to Britain, has to be stopped at all costs, etc – that over time dehumanises him (the intention) to the point that he becomes fair-game to the warped minded variety who feel they have social permission and support to do whatever they like to him.
The Jews in 1930s Germany were given the same treatment. Continual name-calling, pejoratives, cartoons depicting them as rats, characterising them as evil-doers, calling them vermin, until former friends and neighbours either did nothing as they were persecuted or joined in, because Jews had stopped being “people”.
“… Brand’s comments were an obvious joke;”
Jokes are supposed to be funny.
Was it a joke, or a left wing ‘comic’ actress issuing a statement of hate and malilce, using her platform?
Death death to the IDF: another statement of murderous intent issued from the platorm of a pop singer. It is what he did mean.
I don’t think he is actually taking offence (except over the exposure of his daughter) but is using his public complaints as a way of spreading his message’
It is a technique that especially the opposition press will take up and run with. Useful idiots in the terminology of the Communists.
His attack on Polanski was a case in point. I have even heard Green party colleagues and Lib Dems saying he should have apologised.
These type of jokes and insults reflect more on the people who make them than they do on the people they are trying to insult. So best advice is to rise above them and let these people fall flat on their ugly faces which they will no doubt do given time.
“If I was to post anything as inciteful then I would expect to be arrested …….and so should Polanski”.
I cannot fault his claim.
Well I can. Sorry to be pedantic but no one is being incited. It is threatening behaviour – a clear declaration of intent – and that is /should be a breach of the Public Order Act.
I think the establishment is so afraid of the so-called far right not because it fears their violence but because they know they will struggle to hold back the violence of their own – the socialists who by definition are intolerant and inherently predisposed to force.
That’s an interesting point but, if true, they wouldn’t be spending so much time whipping up hatred against this imaginary group of people. I think you got it right in your earlier post – they are a mix of stupid and evil, with each trait supporting the other in a race to the bottom.
I was being a bit facetious.
I agree – the mark of their noxious cocktail of malice and stupidity in this case is their reckless self righteousness. They incite the violence of their own and gaslight the victim.
I think this is wide of the mark for a couple of reasons, one of which the author does touch on.
The first point to make is one I’ve made before: that a properly functioning society would police itself. People saying outrageous things would result in an appropriate societal response i.e. society itself is the enforcer – the judge, jury, and punisher, and that punishment can come in many forms, but will be the impulse of the society working, intuitively, as a whole, not a collection of parts. So a properly functioning society is itself enough of an incentive to not say outrageous things that could cause people with perfectly reasonable beliefs to be murdered. But we don’t have a properly functioning society. That’s the first point.
The second point is that these are not meant to be ‘jokes’ that are funny. So they are not jokes, they are the airing of personal beliefs that are framed as a ‘joke’ so they are palatable. Paisley joking about the wrong Kennedy being shot is, clearly, a joke – he did not want Alan Kennedy to be shot. In contrast, the lefts ‘jokes’ are not jokes but beliefs – they actually want… Read more »
Quite so.
A properly functioning society means members of society have the manners, standards, care for others, training by their parents, teachers and the community, and awareness to know when not to exercise those Rights. Self-discipline and restraint used to be in the fabric of our culture.
Unfortunately we are now a society of: I’ve got Rights, which are anything someone thinks they should have, so I can do whatever I want.
I don’t buy the central thought here. The left claim that language is violence and seek to criminalise anyone who opposes them thereby.
They can’t have it both ways.
Further, and of practical importance, if the voters are fed an incessant diet of bile about Reform and Nigel Farage they come to think it might be true. As fair minded people they are influenced, as FARAGE’s detractors intend, to think the worse of him regardless of the lack of substance in the howling criticism.
on doorsteps and in the pub I have heard exactly the insulting, baseless phrases used by the political class and their friends in the media.
I think that is Farage’s point. He is only using the methods of the left. The Right are expected to play by better rules but perhaps sometimes it is necessarily to use their methods against them., even though this may lead to the dragging down of the Right to their level
One thing is certain, the woke leftards don’t like it up’em.
Since it is Nigel’s neck on the block, he is perfectly entitled to his opinion on what to do about personal threats, passive and active. Brave, brave man. Yes, the real issue is bias not hurty words.
It would be interesting to see what a life insurance premium is for Nigel Farage vs an ordinary person of his age vs a Labour politician.
My guess his is substantially higher which would be the ultimate indictment of the UK establishment.
While I broadly agree with the thrust of this article I fear that the country is skating on thin ice over the acceptability or otherwise of political violence. Jo Cox’s murder was blatantly weaponised by the pro-EU lobby. I remember reading more than one comment that shamelessly linked Thomas Mair with the Leave campaign, as if he was a personal mate of Farage’s. Polly Toynbee, I believe, immediately published an especially vitriolic piece. Even today, googling his name provides an AI overview: ‘. . . a far-right extremist . . .’ Someone can possibly correct me, but wasn’t his chief beef problems with his council over social housing? Farage may well be a bit overly sensitive but he does need protection from physical violence, which – thankfully – very few politicians do. At least not yet.
Words are only words until they provoke physical violence. That is just what the political class wants. If Nigel were to be incapacitated one half of the elites would make soft noises through a grin while the other half would organise a party
Hmmm. Interesting points but I think that the background narrative in our politics has become very febrile. Jokes led to Donald Trump’s near assassination. I agree that Farage should just make jokes back and use clever tactics to skewer the filthy, vile, communist scum (I use plain language insults) on their own rhetoric.