Thursday Dec 12, 2024
Thursday Dec 12, 2024
Thursday, 28 May 2015 00:47 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}
Westminster it isn’t. At least, not in terms of rapier-sharp wit and scintillating repartee! But provoke the firebrand rabble-rousers in Parliament long and hard enough, and sooner or later – out pops the cloven hoof… the forked tongue – and tail… to say nothing of that single, loaded, explosive word. That solitary unparliamentary word has launched a thousand sheep to pen analytical pieces on Hansard’s shame, and burned the thoughtless towers of the island’s House-keepers.
We’ll wager there isn’t a single citizen who hasn’t heard that word echo down the corridors of power and reverberate in the suburbs of Kotte to the shrines of Kataragama and Kurunegala and Kalmunai, to the streets of Kandy, and Kalutara, and Kalpitiya, and Kankesanthurai. Little wonder. Words are powerful. They dig, claw, cut. Scrape, excoriate, desiccate, suck dry. And shred any vestige of decency that civilised debate may have hoped for in a House that badly needs to be cleaned. Of uncultured louts. Of lazy clock-watchers and cloud-gatherers. Of lackeys and lacklustre legislators. Of lackadaisical pension-drawers and lost generations of sycophantic tyrant-worshippers.
And the laziness, this lack, these lacunae – maybe these are the least of the present Parliament’s shortcomings? Maybe there is a lot more to be desired out of many of our current lot of elected representatives. Maybe some of them need to be heard in the House less. Maybe some of them need to be seen in the House more. Maybe far too many of them than is good for a truly representative democracy that checks and controls its imbalances need to go. Maybe it is time to remind some who have lingered too long what Cromwell said to the Long Parliament when he thought it was no longer fit to conduct the affairs of the nation: “You have sat too long here for any good you have been doing. Depart, I say, and let us have done with you. In the name of God, go!” Maybe it is not in any decent god or demigod’s name that they stay… and linger – and do and say these repugnant, regrettable, reprehensible things.
Rogues – the lot of them... as a Government deputy minister has repeatedly noted, recommending that they be put in their rightful place: behind bars. Resolutions to rid the sanctum sanctorum of our legislature of them (drug barons and countless petty criminals) – as promised by the President in his election manifesto – have yet to see fruition.
But this piece is about The Word. My word! What a word it was, wasn’t it? Perhaps its essayist has had second thoughts about it by now. Perhaps the offender has apologised; in public or in private. Perhaps the volatile politico has repented of his rashness. Perhaps the baser man hiding behind the bearded façade of civil discourse has remembered a nastier, more penetrating, maybe more appropriate, word? The Greeks had a word for it!
Be that as it may, unparliamentary language is by no means unique to the legislative chambers of our blessed isle. An interesting list of taboo words can be compiled from scanning the official edited transcripts of several Commonwealth countries. These examples below are only representative and are culled to offer a mere smattering of the smorgasbord available ad nauseam in sundry Hansards:
My Bad Down Under
In Australia, its Senate ordered that “liar” and “dumbo” be withdrawn as unparliamentary in 1997.
In New Zealand, the House has words – and also these phrases – which its Speaker deems unparliamentary, and which were actually used once upon a time in Parliament:
n“the idle vapourings of a diseased mind” (1946)
n“his brains could revolve inside a peanut shell for a thousand years without touching the sides of his head” (1949)
n“he has the energy of a tired snail returning home from a funeral” (1963)
Not Good Husky
In Canada, over the years and in several legislative bodies (the state assemblies of Québec and Alberta, for instance), these words and phrases from among MPs’ utterances have been deemed unparliamentary:
[The last three – no, say, five – of these (if they were criteria for sacking or suspension or impeachment) would maybe? perhaps? disqualify most of our MPs!]
Not So Nice, Yaar!?
Our nearest neighbour India also recently published a treatise with the words that our Parliamentary ‘Big Brother’ would consider unparliamentary and unfit to record for posterity. Some of them will have readers nod knowingly or smile a while:
I’m not sure Indians know that the Yiddish word ‘chutzpah’ would be considered a compliment of sorts, but maybe it is the pronunciation (“hh-oots-paa”) that is the problem? (Homonyms are the issue, sir, and that’s not a homely insult, either!)
True Brit Grit
The Mother of all Parliaments – in the British Isles – is a hoot… as far as what goes, and what doesn’t.
In the United Kingdom, the House of Commons would find these words rude, unbecoming, and unacceptable in parliamentary discourse:
Ireland’s Dáil Éireann, its lower house of Parliament – or Oireachtas, as it is known – prevents one legislator from describing another in these terms of endearment:
Prince of Wails
In the Welsh Assembly among other legislatures in the UK, there is a proper parliamentary frowning upon the use of the appellation “liar” or the allegation of “lying”. But MPs have managed to get around the difficulty. Most memorably by the use of the phrase coined – “terminological inexactitude” – to describe the same thing. By no less than that master wordsmith Winston Churchill! In Sri Lanka, we might claim that our ‘honourable’ members are “being economical with the truth”!
Devilish Disraeli
Other witticisms have abounded in the tradition of British parliamentary legerdemain. Such a legend has it that MP (later Prime Minister) Benjamin Disraeli was rapped on the knuckles by the Speaker of the House of Commons for asseverating that half of the British Cabinet were “asses”. Instructed by the man in the chair to retract his statement, the great would-be statesman replied: “Mr. Speaker, I gladly withdraw my comment. For half the members of the Cabinet are NOT asses!”
Disraeli’s comeback puts Labour MP Tom Watson’s angry accusation during a debate – one concerning Education Secretary Michael Gove’s revision of a list of schools which would get money for rebuilding projects – in the shade. In a fit of near Angevin pique, Watson berated his unfortunate opponent across the well of the House: “You’re a miserable pipsqueak of a man, Gove!” This comment was withdrawn quickly by the offender, ostensibly in deference to the then Speaker of the House. Another (famous) Speaker in the Commons, Betty Boothroyd, was instrumental in having Conservative MP Tony Marlow withdraw his comment in which he called Harriet Harman, a lady opposite him in the chamber, “a stupid cow” during a debate on the CJD/BSE (‘mad-cow’) crisis in 1996. He wasn’t referring to a member of the bovine species, and so was obliged to withdraw his remark.
By The Skinner Of My Teeth
But the legendary tales about long-serving MP Dennis Skinner cut the deepest dash in terms of using taboo language in the House. Online source ‘Total Politics’ recalls his career thus: “During his 39 years in Parliament, he has been suspended from the House of Commons for accusing the government of conducting a crooked deal to sell off coal mines (1995), calling John Gummer ‘a little squirt of a minister’ (1992), accusing George Osborne of snorting coke (2005), calling David Owen ‘a pompous sod’ (1984), accusing the Deputy Speaker of bias towards the Conservatives (2006), and calling Jim Prior, then Secretary of State for Employment, the ‘Minister of Unemployment’ (1980).”
The ‘Beast of Bolsover’ – as Skinner was known – once accused ‘Iron Lady’ Premier Margaret Thatcher of taking bribes (1984), labelled the then Minister of Agriculture “slimy” and “a wart” (1992), called the wholesale disposal of British coal mines “a crooked deal” (1995), and charged that during the 1980s, “the only thing growing were the lines of ‘coke’ in front of Boy George and the rest of the Tories.”
What a hoot… What, well, chutzpah!
Odious Comparison
Truth be told, our piffling little squabble in Parliament late last week pales in comparison. It is almost squalid; lacking fire and finesse – although the proceedings were heated enough to roast your chestnuts on! The PM was arguably out of order, ordering an MP – who had the Speaker’s apparent permission to rise to a point of order – to sit down. The MP in question, who had more surging guts than good sense (and the stomach for a fight) let fly with common, or garden, or gutter language. Just who do they think they are, these “gits” and “guttersnipes” – Winston Churchill? Dennis Skinner? Disraeli? Cromwell?
Hardly, sirs! Be warned that the children of the nation – the next generation – heard you. Of course, YOU won’t be surprised if THEY repeat your choice words… Don’t call THEM ‘nosey parkers’ or ‘nasty pokers’ or something equally unparliamentary if and when they do! As they are bound to! As YOU are their sterling examples of stalwart leadership excellence!
Other Contentions
In contrast, one cannot but admire the tone of certain non-PM-provoked, non-MP-inspired words, which are being spoken out of Parliament these days. Those words are spoken by a soft-spoken President who is beginning to sound increasingly like a well-read statesman. Whether in the House itself on the occasion of the vote on 19A; or on TV in an appeal to the nation and its legislators on the same bill; or in a string of TV interviews; or at national events like Remembrance Day; MS is demonstrating that he is twice the man – at least, in terms of the tenor of his words – that any past or present PM or MP is or was.
If only the inmates, er inhabitants, um Members of the House, would take an example from the timbre of his thoughts and ideals. If only his predecessors in executive office would follow suit. But the less said about the latter the better. Because it is only too evident from their latest offerings at similar events to commemorate the same Day – call it by another, more triumphalist and less reconciliatory Name – that they think they are still in the hot seat, and command the House, but suffer from a “miserable pipsqueak” complex.
