OVER the last 13 years or so in Britain, there has been a perceptible decline in public — and probably private — manners. Whence it came? I posit the Tories and their allies (and competitors) on the right.

See first: the glorification of rudeness and its degrading effect — Donald Trump, Lee Anderson, Nadine Dorries, Boris Johnson (face-pulling and all) and many more. The bullying and sexual harassment conducted by Chris Pincher, Peter Bone and others. Therese Coffey’s legendary combination of stupidity, arrogance and bad manners. Ditto her bessie mate Liz Truss.

Second: the wider behaviour of politicians who feel no shame in behaving brattishly on camera — see Oliver Dowden, Grant Shapps, and Kwasi Kwarteng.

Third: the ignorance and rudeness shown by many hosts on British talk radio and TV “news” channels — eg Mike Graham, Kevin O'Sullivan, Dan Wootton, Patrick Christys, Mark Dolan and their ilk.

Fourth: a certain class of (mainly) privately educated types who regard manners as beneath them, at least to anyone further down the social scale; the likes of Jacob Rees-Mogg and co.

See also the behaviour of David Cameron (“calm down, dear”) and George Osborne when chancellor.

Then there is Tory MP Johnny Mercer and wife Felicity Cornelius-Mercer, who threatened in August 2023 to take “a massive shit on your front lawn” to someone on Twitter/X.

And Andrew Cooper, Tory candidate for the Tamworth by-election, walked out of the counting hall after winning Labour candidate Sarah Edwards began her victory speech. So much for the part of respect, decency and “conservative values.”

The left of course has its share of ill-mannered arses, such as Alistair Campbell, John Prescott and others, but not in such prodigious quantities as the Tories and the ultra-right.

And at least Dennis Skinner could be funny. “Half the Tories opposite are crooks,” he famously said, then after being told to retract, even more famously he corrected: “Half the Tories opposite aren’t crooks.”

Finally, returning to Kwarteng — ever wonder what he’s up to these days? From the October 19 Popbitch weekly email newsletter: “Commuters on the Jubilee Line saw him boarding at Canary Wharf last week. There he sat muttering and chirruping to himself for several minutes, before withdrawing an HB pencil from his pocket.

“He drew this pencil to his ear and rummaged it around in there for about thirty seconds. After which he removed it, plucked the gunk from it, then wiped it on his trousers.”

But undoubtedly the winner of the most recent right-wing “free range rude” (ref Dr Hannibal Lecter) stakes is Dominic “F*ckpig” Cummings, due to his entitled performance and now well-documented foul mouth at the ongoing Covid Inquiry. 

Stephen Arnell is a writer and cultural commentator. His book The Great One: The Secret Memoirs of Pompey the Great is out now.