The Greatest Insults Part III: Some of the Best Political Burns

The best political insults and great comebacks.

Great news! I have finally finished the complete article. It contains all of these shorter pieces into one, as well as a ton of other content. If you want to keep reading these in an easily digestible format, by all means keep clicking. But, if you want everything all in one place, go here.

Part I: The Reply of the Zaporozhian Cossacks

Part II: Mark Twain was an Asshole

Well, it is now February and I still have yet to complete the full work. So, because you’re being so patient, here’s another chapter! The final version will contain tons of additional stuff not covered by this “mini-series”, as well as a big bit on profanity and its role in making or breaking the most epic insults, so yes, you still have to read it when it’s done.

This chapter includes multiple insults and word dueling instead of focusing on a single one because none of them were quite big enough to earn themselves their own chapters. Thus, this segment is dedicated to political insults, most of which seem to be British. This was not intentional.

Politics is an inherently messy reality.

Despite what your weird cousin Dave says, politics are essential to a functioning society and very much do matter. Politics touch on nearly every single level of life, and not caring about them at all isn’t something a responsible adult should do.

But, while the messiness of politics raises tensions, causes enormous rifts in morality and compassion between opposing idealists, this ugliness makes it the perfect primordial soup for spawning some of the best insults ever and some really good comebacks to pair with them.

Political insults are some of the most delicious to hear or read because political discourse is supposed to maintain a certain level of civility.

Clearly, it doesn’t always, but in most cases politicians don’t freak out and assault each other on the floor of Parliament or Congress.1 However, at the end of the day, politicians are just people and just like the rest of us, they like to throw around some great disses and profanity too.

Here are a couple of my favorites:

Winston Churchill to Lady Nancy Astor

Among the United Kingdom’s most famous and beloved public figures, Prime Minister Winston Churchill had the mixed fortune of being a relatively charismatic and moderately capable politician with his heart more or less in the right place, exactly when the world was desperately in need of more of these qualities.2 He is well known because of his tenure as one of the “Big Three”, along with US President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, and Soviet Premier Joseph Stalin during the World War II era. He oversaw a nation during one of the biggest military conflicts in human history and his side won. Yay, Churchill!

Despite his accomplishments and acclaim, Mr. Churchill was also quite well known for being kind of a big, fat jerkasaurus and for his love of boozin’ it up. His sharp wit and inability to hold his tongue, sometimes in sensitive situations, has endeared him to many in a rough and entertaining way. However, not all of his contemporaries thought as much.

Lady Nancy Astor, American born and the first female member of British Parliament, was not his biggest fan, nor he hers – a fact he made abundantly clear on more than one occasion.

She is reputed to have once expressed her sentiment like this:

“If you were my husband I’d put poison in your coffee.”

To which he rather snarkily replied:

“Madam, if you were my wife, I’d drink it”

This was hardly the only of their combatant exchanges. Churchill is alleged to have fired many other caustic verbal pyrotechnics with regards to her appearance, repeatedly calling her ugly or otherwise unworthy of the attention of men. Offensiveness aside, I can’t help but feel like one of the 20th century’s more capable orators could have come up with something better than “ur uggles!”

Some additional barbs flung between the two included one of Lady Astor’s own that I think deserves a brief round of applause.

Winston was clearly not a fan of Nancy’s election to Parliament, and like the misogynistic swamp ape he was, he had no issues baring his sexism for all to see, once exclaiming:

“Having a woman in Parliament is like having one intrude upon me in the washroom….”

Her response:

“You’re not handsome enough to have such fears…”

Ah, antiquated insults. They feel a little bit prissy and tame by today’s standards. Still good.

However, they do get much worse:

Boris Johnson on Turkish President Erdoğan

To set the stage, this delightful story begins with that famous debacle in 2016 that you may have heard of in which German satirist and comedian Jan Böhmermann wrote a not-so-friendly joke/poem thing about Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.

This poem sparked outrage when the president attempted to sue Böhmermann for the insult. It became complicated because apparently Germany still had an obscure law on its books from centuries gone by criminalizing the insulting of foreign heads of state. It seems that they just forgot it was there because most reasonable world leaders don’t go full toddler and start suing foreign nationals when their feelers are hurt.

Oh how long ago 2016 feels…

Fun fact for my American readers: not every country on Earth guarantees quite the same degree of freedom of speech that yours does! You probably knew that already, otherwise we wouldn’t have any real reason to feel special about that holy 1st Amendment, but not all of these less-free countries are the ones you’d expect.

Anyway, they ultimately threw out the case, but not before it blew up into a whole thing, actually nicknamed the Böhmermann Affair or Erdogate.

It wasn’t actually a very good insult either, so it doesn’t get to be here.

This part is about Boris.

Former conservative London mayor and British foreign secretary, Boris Johnson, himself the lovechild of an upturned mop and a racist figgy pudding3, entered a poetry contest designed to further mock the Turkish president as a retort to his ridiculous lawsuit in Germany with a 1,000 pound prize, and won with this wonder of a rhyme:

There was a young man from Ankara,
Who was a terrific wankerer.
Til he sowed his wild oats,
with the help of a goat,
But he didn’t even stop to thankera.
-Boris Johnson

Personal feelings for Boris Johnson aside for a second, I will give full credit where credit is due. Bestiality jokes are truly timeless.

However, as good as I think that was, it is made all the sweeter by the fact that four months later, Johnson would find himself playing diplomat in Turkey, where things got a little awkward for him.

A few extra political rivalries

From the “good people on both sides” serial dunce currently sitting atop the Orange Throne in DC, to the rabble rousing, laurel-wearing nincompoops of the Roman Empire, political insults are the result of what are often raw human exchanges regarding topics of the most severe kind. Politicians such as Johnson, Churchill and Astor are hardly the limits. They may not even be as good as some of these:

John Montagu, 4th Earl of Sandwich to John Wilkes, a political activist:

“Sir, I do not know whether you will die on the gallows or of the pox!”

Wilkes replied:

“That sir, depends on whether I first embrace your Lordship’s principles or your Lordship’s mistresses.”

US President Lyndon Johnson on President Gerald Ford:

“He’s a nice guy, but he played too much football with his helmet off.”4

Australian Prime Minister Paul Keating on John Howard:

“He’s a shiver looking for a spine to run up.”

Johnathan Aitken on Margaret Thatcher:

“She probably thinks Sinai is the plural of sinus.”

I found those here. There are a bunch more political barbs on that site if you’re looking to waste 10 minutes reading them.

Conclusion

There are countless more political rivalries throughout history that have resulted in some colorful language being tossed about. Many of the profanity and slang terms we use to express our sentiments towards many current world leaders have been increasingly creative and vehement. This has been fueled by the hiveminds of Twitter and other social media platforms, which for all of their problems have been a spectacular breeding ground for political insults and barbs of every kind.

When compared to the linguistic Zeitgeist we experience on a daily basis today, the interactions between historic statesmen such as Churchill and Astor can at times seem somewhat tame or demure. While we now live in an era in which calling your head of state a most profanity-laden shit-gobbling fuckwhistle on national television won’t get you beheaded, and is cautiously approaching the norm, bear in mind that the words exchanged between public persons were not necessarily less vulgar or insulting, they simply take on a dated note.

That and prior to the end of the 19th century nobody was around to record things. I’m quite certain they get much worse.

I hope that you have enjoyed some of these political insults and invite you to share some of your favorites. Who knows, if they’re really good I’ll consider throwing them into the full article!

If you haven’t already, or you wish to do so again, you can read the first two posts in this series here:

The Greatest Insults Part III: Some of the Best Political Burns