Swear To God

Who, apart from someone with no friends, would want to go in to politics?

Any time I say this to friends who are journalists they tell me I should be less cynical and more interested as these things determine the future of the country and the world my kids will live in. I’ll then say something like “fine, why don’t you get involved, run for Parliament, and make a difference?”. And that’s when they shut up. They deny it but they treat politics as a sport, like sitting in the Coliseum watching the lions get religion. They won’t admit it’s easy just to be an opinionated spectator.

Occasionally, though, politics gets interesting even for me. One of the surprising things about our Prime Minister’s huge gaffe last week, when he made rude remarks about a senior citizen who had questioned him about immigration, seems to have gone completely unremarked upon and I’m sure it says too much about me that I have noticed.

As Gordon landed himself in the Brown stuff while forgetting he had a microphone on, he laid in to his team for allowing him to encounter an actual real person. He thought he was speaking in private at the time while, as you know, a TV microphone picked it up. But here’s the thing. While undeniably angry, Gordon Brown didn’t use one single swear word.

The next time he speaks to an ordinary person it will be to answer the question “How much bubble wrap would you like for the packing cases sir?”, and he might well use some choice words then.

If you or I were under pressure and losing ground in the polls for the country’s biggest job, we would have lost it completely and thrown in a few choice words that only dockers and verbally challenged premier league footballers would understand. A good sweary word here and there when you’re angry makes life easier doesn’t it?

I remember my then five year old daughter coming home from school and confiding she had learned a bad word which she said was the rudest word in the world. My wife and I were horrified, of course and asked her what it was. She looked coy and then said it was “the ‘F’ word”. I tried to look unflustered while telling her never to use it as it was a very bad word indeed but she chuckled, as if she had discovered the biggest secret in the world.

Over the next few days we debated whether we’d chosen the right school for her and whether we should perhaps move her up a notch or two to a nearby Borstal or get her to board at a local boozer instead. It was a further three days before she told us what the word was as she proudly shouted it out with a smile on her face. It was ‘Fart’.

They say swearing is the last refuge of those who have limited vocabulary but you only have to watch the TV show In The Loop to see that’s not true. It’s about a fictional political spin doctor, and his creative use of swear words is almost Shakespearean in invention.

When told by a department head that she should have been informed about a colleague’s appearance on television as it “falls well within my purview”, head of spin Malcolm Tucker looks at her coldly and says “Within your 'purview'? Where do you think you are? Some f**king Regency costume drama? This is a government department, not some f**king Jane f**king Austen novel! Allow me to pop a jaunty little bonnet on your purview and ram it up your ........”.

Now if that’s not creative, I don’t know what is, and I personally wish the real world of politics was as creative.

A few colourful and inventive uses of expletives might have had our Prime Minister winning voters the length and breadth of the country.