Alistair Beaton's Political Insults

However grisly the condition of our politics right now, one thing is sure: the political insult is alive and well.

Or is it? After all, the insult is a weapon that comes in many forms, and in Britain over recent years it has been more sledgehammer than rapier. Nothing illustrates this better than Prime Minister’s Questions.

This weekly ritual, once conceived of as a means of elucidating and testing government policy, is now a glorious slugfest, watched around the world with a mixture of glee and horror.

During PMQs David Cameron has variously described Ed Miliband as “a complete mug“, “a con man”, “the nothing man”, “despicable” and “a complete waste of space”.

Not that Labour is innocent when it comes to verbal fisticuffs.

There was something sinister about Tony Blair that day he leant over the despatch box, stared down at William Hague, and with icy contempt in his voice, said: “I know he’s very keen on summing up policies in six words. So how about this? You are the weakest link, goodbye.”

For plain rudeness, Nigel Farage takes some beating.

Here’s the political insult at its most crude, as the UKIP Leader stands up in the European Parliament in 2010 and says to European President Herman van Rompuy: “You know, really, you have the charisma of a damp rag, and the appearance of a low-grade bank clerk. And the question I want to ask.... is who are you?!”

Farage got his comeuppance four years later on Question Time, when Russell Brand, comparing Farage with the 1960s politician notorious for his racism, called him "a pound shop Enoch Powell".

Labour stalwart Tom Watson could hardly be described as subtle when he raged at the Conservative Education Secretary: “You’re a miserable pipsqueak of a man, Gove!”

And yet, and yet... The Watson insult would not have been half as effective if, say, Eric Pickles had been Education Secretary. Eric is just too, too solid to be a pipsqueak, whereas there is just a hint of pipsqeakness about Michael Gove, a man with the eagerness of a head prefect. So although it was essentially a crude insult, Watson’s choice of language was smart simply because it had a resonance in people’s imaginations.

An ever better example was provided by Vince Cable when, keen to needle Gordon Brown for his erratic behaviour, he declared: “The house has noticed the PM’s remarkable transformation in the last few weeks from Stalin to Mr Bean.”

Yet sadly, to find examples of rapier wit at its best, we have to look to the past.

As always, Churchill comes up trumps. He described his Labour opponent Clem Attlee as “a sheep in sheep's clothing” and “a modest man, who has much to be modest about”.

Playing very much the same note, but with an elegant twist, Churchill also told the tale of how “an empty taxi arrived at 10 Downing Street, and when the door was opened, Atlee got out”.

Harold Wilson once said of Tony Benn: “He immatures with age.” Though he was probably more on the money when he described Conservative Prime Minister Edward Heath as: "A shiver looking for a spine to run up.” (An inspired insult, this one.)

Across the Atlantic, the political insult continues to flourish, both as sledgehammer and rapier.

The annual White House Correspondents' Dinner is a rich source of political savagery dressed up as after-dinner wit.

In 2005 Stephen Colbert mocked President George W Bush to his face with this: “I stand by this man because he stands for things. Not only for things, he stands on things.Things like aircraft carriers, and rubble, and recently flooded city squares. And that sends a strong message that no matter what happens to America she will always rebound with the most powerfully staged photo-ops in the world."

Mind you, when it comes to Bush, I’m almost as keen on Margaret Cho’s great in-your-face insult: "George Bush is not Hitler. He would be if he f***ing applied himself."

But in the end, for me, the accolade for the most gleaming, the most incisive insult, the most succinct of insults has to go to the great Dorothy Parker. When told that President Coolidge was dead, she said simply: “How could they tell?”

Alistair Beaton is a satirist, playwright, radio presenter, novelist and television writer whose credits include Not the Nine O’Clock News, Spitting Image, Feelgood and The Trial of Tony Blair.