WHY wINSTON CHURCHILL WILL ALWAYS BE THE LAST WORD IN POLITICAL WIT

Why Winston Churchill will always be the last word in political wit


A new Dictionary of Humorous Political Quotations has just been published, demonstrating that political quips can be funny and telling








Winston Churchill's sayings included: “An appeaser is one who feeds a crocodile hoping it will eat him last.” and “The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter.” Photo: Winston Churchill






By Michael Deacon

8:44PM GMT 22 Nov 2012


95 Comments




Clement Attlee “looks like a female llama surprised while bathing”. That was one of his. “An appeaser is one who feeds a crocodile hoping it will eat him last.” That was his, too. And this one. “The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter.”


It hardly seems fair. Not only did Winston Churchill lead us to victory in a world war. Not only is he our most popular prime minister. Not only was he awarded the Nobel prize for literature. But on top of all that, he’s our finest political wit. Some of us spend our working lives trying to dream up passable jokes about life in the Commons. Yet here was a man who could dream up brilliant jokes about life in the Commons while actually leading the Commons. Show-off.


The reason I’ve been thinking about this is that the other morning I received a copy of the newly published Dictionary of Humorous Political Quotations (editor Fred Metcalf, publisher Biteback). Open it at random – indeed, open any book of quotes at random – and chances are you’ll find some choicest Churchill, or at least, a line that’s been attributed to him because it sounds too good to be by anyone else.


I suppose I’ll have to declare an interest. Churchill’s wasn’t the first name that caught my eye as I flicked through the book. In fact it was, well, all right, mine, sitting beneath some heartless and unjust slur about Gordon Brown looking like a bad-tempered wardrobe in a suit. Of course I’m not so repulsively egotistical as to have immediately scoured the book for any other lines taken from my parliamentary sketches. (There were 15. Precisely 15. I checked twice, cackling maniacally. As none of my colleagues were in the office that early, on their behalf I kicked myself down the nearest flight of stairs.)


Once I’d dusted myself off and returned to my desk I read the book properly. Its quotes were divided by subject, but they could just as easily have been divided by type. For example, the pun (Clement Freud calling Mrs Thatcher “Attila the Hen”). The rueful self-deprecation (Malcolm Rifkind: “You realise you’re no longer in government when you get in the back of your car and it doesn’t go anywhere”). The simile (“The House of Lords is like a glass of champagne that has stood for five days.” That was by our old friend, the surprised female llama).



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Then there’s what I’ll call the Molotov cocktail – not so much a witticism as an incendiary weapon lobbed in the direction of the enemy. For example, the headline on a column by the gleefully provocative Republican commentator Ann Coulter: “Liberals Love America Like OJ Loved Nicole.”

After Churchill, the wittiest politicians are probably the two Johnsons: Boris (“My position on cake is pro-having it, and pro-eating it”) and Lyndon B (“Only two things are necessary to keep one’s wife happy. First, let her think she’s having her own way. And second, let her have it.” Not strictly political, but so good I’m quoting it anyway).

For an insult to score, it must be specific. It’s no use just calling people thick. Take this American bumper sticker: “If ignorance is bliss, then you must be one happy liberal!” On the face of it, neat enough. Trouble is, you could change “liberal” to “Republican” (or whatever else you like) and it would make no material difference: it’s still the same joke. Unlike, say, “The problem with socialism is you eventually run out of other people’s money” (attributed to Mrs Thatcher). That could apply only to the named ideology.

Yes, political quips are reductive – but reductive in a good way. So much in politics is long, pompous and dull. A decent witticism reduces it to something short, sharp and amusing. More than that, it makes politics seem graspable, in a way that rambling rhetoric doesn’t. To quote that deathless wit, Anon: “A Communist is someone who has nothing and wishes to share it with the world.”

Those 15 words say more than most half-hour speeches.