On Abusing Politicians

Is it ok to swear at Nigel Farage?

Over the past fortnight, you may have watched a video on YouTube of a female driver calling Nigel Farage a ‘wanker’, before smashing into the back of another vehicle. Allegedly.

There has always been a rowdy side to British politics, and civilization always feels like it’s on the edge of a precipice to someone. Even so, I’m going to stick my neck out and say that things are particularly bad at the moment. But before my opinion, my confession. I was once an accomplice to a drive-by shouting.

The wit displayed is unlikely to get me into the Oxford Dictionary of Political Quotations and my involvement is not something of which I’m particularly proud. However, I did pay full attention to the road at all times; my manners may be of the gutter, but my motoring is on point.

We were in Leigh-on-Sea, a posh suburb of Southend in Essex, and it was the early 2000s. David Amess MP was out canvassing for an election and I was driving home, when I said to my passenger: “Amess is such a wanker.”

My passenger wound down his window and repeated the unkind slur at volume, as we whizzed past. Allegedly. I’m not sure whether Amess heard or not, what with me paying full attention to the road, but I chuckled heartily as we went merrily on our way.

Our motives, beyond mere childishness, were less about politics (Amess= Conservative, me = Labour, passenger = apolitical yobbo) and more about something that we all had in common: we had all escaped from Basildon.

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There was an occasion, back in Basildon, during the late 80s/early 90s, when Amess definitely heard my opinions. I was drinking in a bar called The Roof Gardens, at the top of an escalator in a concrete block that housed a car park and bowling alley as well as the bar. Anyone who grew up in communist era east Berlin, would have found the aesthetics reminiscent of home.

My drinking companions were all musicians and we were joking about how they should have entered the ‘Song for Basildon’ contest, launched by our local MP, David Amess.

From the town square below, where the winner was performing, we could hear some insipid lyrics over a banal tune making its way up the escalators. Surely my friends could have created something better than that? One of them, a guitarist, had done some session work for a musician who once got to number 14 on the hit parade; that’s the level of artistry we’re dealing with here.

Amess made quite a thing about being ‘Mr Basildon’. It became a bit of a joke in the House of Commons, as he was prone to banging on about the town in a sightly delusional way. I think it made some of his colleagues cringe as much as we did.

Then, who should enter the bar? Nonother than David Amess MP, Mr Basildon himself. He was accompanied by a heavy set fellow in a suit and a young, fresh faced teen, who had just finished performing. As a treat, presumably, they bought the aspiring pop star a refreshing glass of lemonade.

Now, when the stars align, you have to accept providence’s call. The universe compelled us to serenade David with our very own ‘song for Basildon’.

I can’t remember too much about it, but one of the advantages of standing on the terraces of a football ground during your youth, is you develop the ability to hastily improvise a song, given a familiar tune.

There were some references to the Conservative party, and we managed to rhyme the words ‘just another Tory fascist’ with ‘the car park stairwell stinks of piss’; we are from the nation that produced Shakespeare, Milton and Keats, after all. Was it any good, though? Well, on the one hand, I was with fairly accomplished musicians, on the other hand, we were about five pints deep into an afternoon drinking session. So probably not.

The aforementioned guitarist was the son of a bigwig in the local branch of the Conservative party and a friend of David Amess. This didn’t stop him from joining in, of course, but did make him cover his face with beer mats, somewhat like a shire horse’s blinkers.

As with all classic pop songs, it didn’t last long and David and his entourage moved swiftly on. I soon forgot about this moment, until October 2021, which I will come back to.

Basildon was a weather vane town, if the working class Tories that made up the bulk of the electorate were going to vote Labour, the government was doomed. David Amess clung on to his seat in 1992 and the government survived. Rather endearingly, on election night he admitted not having a victory speech, as he had expected to lose.

Three years later Paul Channon, MP for the Conservative safe-seat of Southend West, retired. Quicker than you can say ‘I’m backing Basildon’, Amess was heading off to Southend to chat up the old codgers on the selection committee. And lo and behold! David Amess was suddenly MP for Southend West. What a wanker.

Then, in the autumn of 2021, he was murdered by a crazed Islamist at his surgery in Leigh on Sea. I was horrified. I might not have shared Amess’ politics and I mocked his cringe-inducing Basildon-guff, but political violence? No, never. If you use threats and violence to get your way in a democracy, you are the bad guy. The attacker was motived by Amess’ voting record, which he judged to be Islamophobic.

This came 5 years after the murder of Jo Cox MP, by a right-wing lunatic. And now, 5 years on from Amess, we have the killing of Anne Widecombe MP.

The death of Widecombe was shocking enough in itself, but the gloating on line was something else. Tragedies frequently provoke sick jokes, it’s a way of dealing with uncomfortable feelings, but this was different, totally mirthless and part of a worrying trend.

I was reminded of the aftermath of Charlie Kirk’s murder. It’s no surprise that young men made jokes about it, but when the President-elect of the Oxford Union, George Abaraoyne, posts ‘Charlie Kirk got shot, lets fucking go’ and ‘Charlie Kirk got shot loool’ something is seriously wrong. Kirk wasn’t some abstract figure to Abaraoyne, they had met in person when Kirk was a guest speaker at the Union. Truly disturbing.

There are people, apparently in earnest, saying that it should have been Nigel Farage who was killed, not Widecombe, or that he should be next. As much as the man deserves Count Binface, he doesn’t need a bludgeoning or a bullet to the head. Or gallows, for that matter.

Verbal abuse can lead to physical violence quite easily, but from what I’ve seen, political assassins are not edge-lords who have taken the banter too far. Rather, they are humourless, self-aggrandising, wacko-prigs.

Still, if there is one thing politicians care about, it’s politicians. Expect ramped up security. I’m surprised that Starmer didn’t try to introduce ID cards, an internet ban and the cutting of the winter fuel allowance for pensioners during his final days as PM, all on the pretext of safeguarding politicians.

More draconian anti-free speech legislation will be on its way, though; along with more surveillance and, I dare say, a few grannies will be locked up over some spicy Facebook posts. Our prisons will never be too full for yet more internet-abusers.

None of that will work, of course. Change has to come from the people, so good luck with that.

Those of us who are educated and on the liberal-left side of things, are very alive to the threats posed by the right. We need also to pay close attention to increasingly hysterical behaviour on the left and the creeping authoritarianism of the state. Wankers.