Unrestricted

Unrestricted (pronounced uhn-ri-strik-tid)

(1) Not restricted or confined.

(2) In the classification of documents, having no security classification.

1766: The construct was un-+ restrict + -ed.  The un- prefix was from the Middle English un-, from the Old English un-, from the Proto-West Germanic un-, from the Proto-Germanic un-, from the primitive Indo-European n̥-.  It was cognate with the Scots un- & on-, the North Frisian ün-, the Saterland Frisian uun-, the West Frisian ûn- &  on-, the Dutch on-, the Low German un- & on-, the German un-, the Danish u-, the Swedish o-, the Norwegian u- and the Icelandic ó-.  It was (distantly) related to the Latin in- and the Ancient Greek ἀ- (a-), source of the English a-, the Modern Greek α- (a-) and the Sanskrit अ- (a-).  The verb restrict was in use by at least the 1530s in the sense of “to limit, bound, confine (someone or something), prevent from passing a certain limit in any kind of action” and was from the Latin restrictus, past participle of restringere (bind fast, restrain) and perfect passive participle of restringō (draw back tightly; restrain, restrict), the construct being re- (back, again) + stringō (press, tighten, compress); as an adjective, it was a doublet of ristretto. By the eighteenth century, the word had come to be regarded as a Scotticism but the infection spread quickly to Standard English.  As the past-participle adjective from restrict (in the sense of “limited, confined”), restricted has become associated with the classification of government documents, in the sense of “not for public release”, use seems not to have been routine until 1944 when a system of classification was codified by the US government.  Prior to that, although restrictions of distribution were common, concepts such as “Restricted to [names or designations]”, “Secret”, “Top Secret” etc were used but there was no standardization within departments or even between branches of the military.  When used as a suffix to form possessional adjectives from nouns, -ed was from the Middle English -ed, from the Old English -od (the adjectival suffix), from the Proto-Germanic -ōdaz, from the primitive Indo-European -ehtos.  It was cognate with the Latin -ātus. 

Glory road: A “Derestricted” sign in Australia's Northern Territory from the days of “no speed limits”.

In use, the older adjectival use was simply “restrict” and although “unrestricted” would seem an absolute (ie something either is restricted or it is not), dictionaries confirm the comparative is “more unrestricted” and the superlative “most unrestricted” although at least one style guide notes those forms can be regarded in a similar way as “very unique” (ie technically incorrect but widely used and well-understood.  The related adverb “restrictedly” was and remains rare.  In the US, well into the twentieth century, the appearance of the word “restricted” in advertisements, signage and such was verbal shorthand for (depending on context and location): “No Jews”, “No coloreds” etc.  Although the words “unrestricted” & “derestricted” describe similar states, different histories are implied and that’s a product of the ways in which the absence of restrictions came about.  Unrestricted means literally “no restrictions” (access to something or somewhere; rights to engage in trade etc).  “Derestricted” means that previously restrictions must have been imposed but those have since been removed.  The use applies to document classifications and in the now rare cases of roads with no speed limits (although some of those were something of a linguistic outlier because in many cases they never had any restrictions to be derestricted.  For obvious reasons, in English, “unrestricted” is the more commonly used form.  Unrestricted, unrestrictive & unrestrictable are adjectives, unrestrictedness is a noun and unrestrictedly is an adverb.

1978 Mercedes-Benz 450 SEL 6.9 on the Northern Territory's derestricted roads.  

Although the factory only ever claimed 225 km/h (140 mph), top speed of a UK-delivered “Euro spec” 6.9 (ie one not fitted with the power-sapping anti-emission devices fitted to those built for sale in the US or Australia) turned out to be a verified 237 km/h (147 mph) which reflected the experience of European testers who achieved 238 km/h (148 mph) on the German Autobahns.  Unexceptional now, such pace was in the 1970s a reasonable achievement for a heavy cruiser with pre-modern aerodynamics; at high-speed, the fuel consumption was as awe inspiring as one might expect from a 6.8 litre (417 cubic inch) V8 at full throttle.  The most powerful of the W116 range (1972-1980), technically the 6.9 was a V116 (the "V" denoting the 100 mm (4 inch) longer wheelbase) and was the spiritual successor to the old (W109) 300 SEL 6.3 (1967-1972) which adopted the classic muscle car formula for the 1964 Pontiac GTO by taking the 6.3 litre (386 cubic inch) V8 (M100) from the huge 600s (W100, 1963-1981) and putting it in a mid-sized car previously powered by nothing larger than a 3.0 litre (183 cubic inch) straight-six.  The distinct "hot rod" flavor of the 6.3 made it a more entertaining drive than the 6.9 but the latter was a vastly improved machine and the template on which the factory would build decades of success.  One quirk of the 6.9 was the use of a dry sump; with the lower hood (bonnet) line of the W/V116, the V8 was simply too tall to fit if conventionally lubricated.   

Idealistic lawyers (they do exist) and others have for centuries argued it is the existence of and adherence to laws which makes possible civilized societies, the alternative often expressed as “the law of the jungle”, best understood in the vernacular “kill or be killed” world in which life of man was “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short”, memorably described in Leviathan (1651) by the very clever and deliciously wicked English philosopher Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679).  However, what the lawyers, at least privately, acknowledge is the extent of adherence to laws closely is tied to (1) their enforcement and (2) a layered system of punishments for transgressions.  In domestic legal systems, this is comprehended as the apparatus extending from receiving a fine for overstaying one’s time at a parking meter to being hanged for murder; the existence of laws does not prevent crime but the perception of the chance of detection and the subsequent penalty for many operates as a deterrent and the debates about relationship between certain penalties and their deterrent effect continue.

Mahan's The Influence of Sea Power upon History 1660-1783.  In the last decade of the nineteenth century, probably no book was more read in palaces, chancelleries & admiralties.

In war, although usually the opposing sides have geo-political objectives, for those doing the fighting, historically the business was about killing each other and in practice that of course quickly and understandably came to imply “by whatever means possible” but for many centuries there have been conventions which form of “rules of war”, the most celebrated the various chivalric codes (codified during of the Middle Ages) which sought to regulate the behaviour of soldiers, particularly towards civilians.  However, as US Navy Captain Alfred Mahan (1840–1914) pointed out in the epoch-making The Influence of Sea Power upon History, 1660–1783 (1890), it’s impossible by mere agreement to outlaw the use of a militarily effective weapon so is it any more plausible for a statute, treaty or agreement to limit “mission creep” in the methods?  Whatever knightly codes may have existed, there seems little doubt that on the battlefield (or the towns subject to rape & pillage) habits do tend towards “unrestricted warfare”, military historians and legal theorists often pondering whether in “existential conflicts”, law reasonably can be expected to retain its intended force.

In what was a rhetorical flourish rather than a substantive legal point, in the dock before the IMT (International Military Tribunal) which in 1945-1946 sat in Nuremberg to try 22 of the surviving senior Nazis, Hermann Göring (1893–1946; leading Nazi 1922-1945, Hitler's designated successor & Reichsmarschall 1940-1945) claimed to be quoting Winston Churchill (1875-1965; UK prime-minister 1940-1945 & 1951-1955) in citing: “In the struggle for life and death there is in the end no legality.”  Like William Shakespeare (1564–1616), a few phrases have been attributed to Churchill on the basis of “sounding Churchillian” and although there’s nothing in the record to support the case those exact words ever passed his lips, Göring’s paraphrase was not unreasonable.  After the fall of France in 1940, Churchill did make clear his view “there could be no justice if, in a mortal struggle, the aggressor tramples humanity while those resisting remain bound by violated conventions” by which he meant if the Nazis ignored international law, it was an absurdity for the Allies fully to remain constrained by it while fighting for their very survival.  Churchill was not advocating the rejection of established law as a principle; he was saying when a state faces the prospect of destruction at the hand of an enemy ignoring the accepted rules of war, strict legalism must not be allowed to prevent an effective defence.  That wasn’t a novel idea Churchill formed upon assuming the premiership.  Months earlier, when serving as First Lord of the Admiralty (minister for the navy), he’d discussed whether the UK should regard itself still restricted by the legal conventions Germany’s forces were ignoring: “The Germans have torn up the conventions and the usages of war.  We cannot allow ourselves to be bound by rules which the enemy does not observe if by doing so we place our country in mortal danger.”  While not exactly the words used by Göring in the dock, he captured the spirit of Churchill’s meaning.

Lindsay Lohan on the cover of Vogue Arabia, March 2026.  Among the topics raised in discussion about her not uneventful life was “…coming of age in the spotlight in a time of unrestricted paparazzi access and near-constant tabloid scrutiny.”

Of course on 15 March 1946, borrowing the thoughts of “…one of our greatest, most important, and toughest opponents…” to support his argument modern, industrial, total war had rendered irrelevant traditional legal restraints, he was still harbouring the (faint) hope he might escape the noose and thus has a good motive in seeking to undermine the moral authority of the tribunal by suggesting even Churchill had acknowledged that in existential war, legal rules collapse.  This was not the construction of legal theory in the abstract, just as Churchill was explaining the pragmatic nature of military necessity because as he pointed out: “without victory there is no survival” and were the UK unilaterally to obey the rules while its opponents did not, the nation might lose the war.  Neither man ever sought to maintain that in war laws vanish, only that as demanded in extraordinary and reprehensible circumstances, they may need to be ignored.  Essentially, Churchill was asserting he wasn’t prepared to behave with the propriety of Caesar’s wife while Göring cavorted with Caesar’s whores; with that the Reichmarshall gleefully would have agreed and although his hopes the tribunal might find his paraphrased defence exculpatory were by then faint indeed, he still had an eye on the figure he hoped to cut in the history books.  

The doctrine of military necessity of course dates from the first time some prehistoric character picked up a stick or rock to gain tactical advantage in an argument and despite the various codes of warfare promulgated over millennia by philosophers, priests and politicians, that doctrine survived into the age of musketry and later, atomic bombs.  It’s the Prussian general and military theorist Carl von Clausewitz (1780–1831) who often is quoted because, with his commendable economy of phrase, succinctly he explained why necessity so often prevails over legality in existential war.  In On War (1832), he observed “War is an act of force, and there is no logical limit to the application of that force” and, anticipating the idealists, added: “Kind-hearted people might of course think there was some ingenious way to disarm or defeat an enemy without too much bloodshed… Pleasant as it sounds, it is a fallacy.”  What Clausewitz called Kriegsräson (necessity in war) meant in practice was (1) war has an inherent tendency toward escalation, because each side must use whatever means are necessary to defeat the other and (2) “arms races” will tend to ensue.

Imperial Chancellor Theobald von Bethmann Hollweg in field uniform including the famous Prussian Pickelhaube (spiked helmet, the construct being Pickel (pimple, pickaxe) +‎ Haube (hood, cap)), Berlin, 1915.  Even when serving as chancellor (prime minister) von Bethmann Hollweg sometimes wore military uniform; Germans adore uniforms (note the jackboots).

Later in the century, German military jurists expressed this logic through the principle Kriegsräson geht vor Kriegsmanier (military necessity overrides the customary rules of war) by which they meant the laws and customs of war could be followed only to the extent adherence did not impose an unacceptable military cost; if survival (and in practice: “immediate advantage”) demanded those rules be violated, necessity prevails.  What was at the time the most outrageous admission of the application of the doctrine came in 1914 after Germany violated Belgium’s neutrality and was delivered by Theobald von Bethmann Hollweg (1856–1921) who between 1909-1917 served as one of a series of inadequate replacements of Otto von Bismarck (1815-1989; chancellor of the German Empire (the “Second Reich”) 1871-1890); imperial chancellor of the German Empire 1909-1917).  In what must remain among the more ill-advised statements delivered by a politician, von Bethmann Hollweg on 4 August 1914 stood in the Reichstag (lower house of the imperial parliament) and explained to assembled members the German war-plan required the army marching Belgium to attack France and that Germany being a signatory to the Treaty of London (1839) which guaranteed Belgium’s neutrality had been rendered irrelevant by military necessity, the always quoted passage being: “We are violating international law, but necessity knows no law.”  Not all historians agree Realpolitik held a greater fascination for Germans than others but for students of the art, the chancellor’s speech appears in just about every text-book on the subject.  Warming to his theme, when the British ambassador to Germany protested the violation, von Bethmann Hollweg responded it would be an absurdity were Britain to go to war “just for a scrap of paper” (that scrap being the treaty the Germans had in 1839 signed as co-guarantors of Belgian neutrality).  That cynical turn of phrase was echoed a generation later when, under cross-examination in the dock at Nuremberg, Göring almost gloatingly admitted he and the other leading Nazis had regarded the many treaties they’d signed as “just so much toilet paper.”

Like many a defendant, the defrocked Reichmarshall was at times evasive or dissembling but on the matter of the regime’s attitude to treaties, he was truthful.  A highlight of the 50^th birthday celebration for Joachim von Ribbentrop (1893–1946; Minister of Foreign Affairs of Nazi Germany 1938-1945) had been the presentation to the minister of a diamond-studded casket containing facsimiles of all the treaties he had signed during (his admittedly busy if not productive) tenure.  When one of his aides remarked that there were only “a few treaties we had not broken”, Ribbentrop was briefly uncertain how to react until he saw “…Hitler’s eyes filled with tears of laughter.”  It was said to be a good party which must have been welcome because by 1943 there wasn't much to celebrate in Berlin.  Like Göring, Ribbentrop, was convicted on all four counts (planning aggressive war, waging aggressive war, war crimes & crimes against humanity) and sentenced to be hanged; his life did end on the gallows, unlike Göring who, in circumstances never explained, cheated the hangman by taking poison.

Periscope cam: Footage of USN submarine strike on the Iranian Navy’s frigate IRIS Dena (released by the Pentagon (unclassified)).

One of the intriguing legal matters explored before the IMT was the matter of the lawfulness of “unrestricted submarine warfare” and those discussions were recalled when, early in March, 2026, the Pentagon announced a USN (US Navy) submarine had torpedoed and sunk the Iranian Navy’s IRIS Dena (a Moudge-class frigate) with the loss of more than half the ship’s compliment of 130-odd.  Pete Hegseth (b 1980; US Secretary of Defense (and War) since 2025) described the act as one of “quiet death” although that was a reference to the torpedo’s stealthy approach rather than the explosions which doomed ship and crew.  It was the USN’s first sinking of an enemy warship by torpedo since World War II (1939-1945) and because (1) the US and Iran undeniably are in a “state of armed conflict” (any legal distinction between that and “war” as traditionally defined ceasing decades earlier much to matter), (2) the Dena was a warship and (3) the action took place in international waters, the attack doubtlessly was within the rules of war and the reaction of Tehran in branding it an “atrocity at sea” was a political rather than legal claim.

Defendants in the dock, Nuremberg, 1946.  All were guilty of something and a dozen were sentenced to be hanged (including one in absentia) but the IMT acquitted three who subsequently were prosecuted by German courts.

What however remains of interest is the recent change in tactics by the US which now uses military-level missiles to target and sink what appear to be civilian vessels from Central America, the White House claiming the boats are being used to smuggle narcotics.  When considering the lawfulness of “unrestricted submarine warfare”, the IMT in 1946 held that while international law did limit the conduct of navies in their interactions with non-military (ie merchant craft, fishing boats etc) vessels, because the British merchantmen were from the beginning of the war armed and captains had been ordered by the Admiralty to if possible ram U-boats, they were not entitled to the warning provisions of the protocol.  Beyond that, with reference to the failure on the part of German U-boat (submarine) commanders to rescue their shipwrecked victims, the tribunal observed:

“The evidence further shows that the rescue provisions [of the Protocol] were not carried out and that the defendant [Großadmiral Karl Dönitz (1891–1980; head of the German Navy 1943-1945, German head of state 1945)] ordered that they not be carried out.  The argument of the defense is that the security of the submarine is, as the first rule of the sea, paramount to rescue and that the development of aircraft made rescue impossible.  This may be so, but the Protocol is explicit.  If the commander cannot rescue, then under its terms he cannot sink a merchant vessel and should allow it to pass harmless before his periscope.  These orders, then, prove Doenitz is guilty of a violation of the Protocol.”  Had the judgement at that point ended the legal position would have been clear in that having at least tacitly conceded the defense’s point that rescue was no longer practicable in light of the limitations of the submarine and modern technological developments, the use of submarines as commerce destroyers would have been deemed against international law.  However Doenitz’s counsel introduced evidence (including affidavits from Allied admirals) that the USN & Royal Navy had from the outbreak of hostilities also practiced the “unrestricted submarine warfare” of which the Germans were being accused and this was not a classic Tu quoque gambit (in international law, a justification of action based on an assertion that the act with which the accused is charged was also committed by the accusing parties.  It was from the Latin Tū quoque (translated literally as “thou also” and latterly as “you also”; the translation in the vernacular is something like “you did it too”, thus the legal slang “youtooism” & “whataboutyouism”)).  What counsel argued was that in practicing “unrestricted submarine warfare”, all navies were acting in accordance with international law because such law makes sense only if it is cognizant of the prevailing circumstances (ie reality).  The IMT’s judgement in the Doenitz case was difficult to read (it was only later it was revealed to have been written by a judge who voted for his acquittal) but what it said was (1) the defendant had violated the protocols which were the rules of international law as they at the time stood but (2) the nature of total war had so changed the reality of war at sea that those protocols were no longer law, rendered obsolete and thus defunct.  That was as close as the tribunal came to allowing a tu quoque defense.

Unclassified footage released by the Pentagon of one of dozens of strikes on alleged “narco-terrorist” boats by US Southern Command.  The video included a message from Secretary of War Pete Hegseth: “TO ALL NARCO-TERRORISTS WHO THREATEN OUT HOMELAND - IF YOU WANT TO STAY ALIVE, STOP TRAFFICKING DRUGS.”  As far as is known, in all cases of these strikes, all on board the boats were killed.

So, while the US military (and for this purpose that includes the Coast Guard, National Guard etc) have a free hand to attack on the high seas warships of a hostile combatant, does the doctrine of “unrestricted warfare” extend to civilian vessels allegedly being used for unlawful activities?  Legal scholars have explored this novel development (something genuinely new and introduced during the second administration of Donald Trump (b 1946; US president 2017-2021 and since 2025)) and the consensus seems to be sinking manned civilian vessel with missiles as an instance in peacetime law enforcement is of dubious legality unless strict conditions are met.  The first thing to consider is whether it’s a matter of (1) peacetime law enforcement in international waters (something governed by the UNCLOS (United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea)), customary international law and any bilateral interdiction agreements and thus a criminal matter rather than an act of war or (2) armed conflict at sea (and thus coming under the laws of naval warfare) which depends of a “state of armed conflict” existing between sovereign states.

However, whichever is held to be operative, as a general principle, civilian vessels are protected from missile attacks and enjoy freedom of navigation (certainly on the high seas); forces from warships may board, inspect, and arrest, but not arbitrarily destroy and under the UNCLOS there are explicit provisions under which a warship can stop a vessel suspected of statelessness or certain crimes but use of force must be necessary and proportionate.  Conceptionally, the notion of “proportionality” is little different from what is the domestic law of many states concerning matters such as self-defense: (1) there is no reasonable alternative and (2) force must not exceed what is needed to achieve a lawful objective.  Because these are events happening “on the water” there are also “graduations” in the use of force which are unique to the nautical environment including signals and warnings, maneuvering to compel a stop, warning shots (the classic “shot across the bows”) and disabling fire.  When civilian vessels are involved, historically, only in extremis (presenting a clear & present threat) would lethal force be deemed appropriate.  In other words, using missiles, without warning, to sink a civilian vessel would, in the context of law enforcement, be thought “disproportionate” especially if the crew’s lives are put at serious risk (inherent in missile attacks).  That’s all based on the precept that whether on land or at sea, states are expected to respect the right to life under international human rights law.  Because the adoption of this technique was so sudden, legal theorists are still working through the implications but it would appear an extension of the concept of “unrestricted warfare” beyond military targets.

Bug

Bug (pronounced buhg)

(1) Any insect of the order Hemiptera, especially any of the suborder Heteroptera (a hemipteran or hemipteron; a hemipterous insect), having piercing and sucking mouthparts specialized as a beak (rostrum) and known loosely as the “true bug”.

(2) Any of various species of marine or freshwater crustaceans.

(3) In casual use, any insect or insect-like invertebrate (ie used often of spiders and such because of their supposed “bug-like” quality).

(4) In casual use, any micro-organism causing disease, applied especially to especially a virus or bacterium.

(5) An instance of a disease caused by such a micro-organism; a class of such conditions.

(6) In casual (and sometimes structured) use, a defect or imperfection, most associated with computers but applied also to many mechanical devices or processes.

(7) A craze or obsession (usually widespread or of long-standing).

(8) In slang, a person who has a great enthusiasm for such a craze or obsession (often as “one bitten by the bug”).

(9) In casual (and sometimes structured) use, a hidden microphone, camera or other electronic eavesdropping device (a clipping of bugging device) and used analogously of the small and effectively invisible (often a single-pixel image) image on a web page, installed usually for the purpose of tracking users.

(10) Any of various small mechanical or electrical gadgets, as one to influence a gambling device, give warning of an intruder, or indicate location.

(11) A mark, as an asterisk, that indicates a particular item, level, etc.

(12) In US horse racing, the five-pound (2¼ kg) weight allowance able to be claimed by an apprentice jockey and by extension (1) the asterisk used to denote an apprentice jockey's weight allowance & (2) in slang, US, a young apprentice jockey (sometimes as “bug boy” (apparently used thus also of young female jockeys, “bug girl” seemingly beyond the pale.)).

(13) A telegraph key that automatically transmits a series of dots when moved to one side and one dash when moved to the other.

(14) In the slang of poker, a joker which may be used only as an ace or as a wild card to fill a straight or a flush.

(15) In commercial printing, as “union bug”, a small label printed on certain matter to indicate it was produced by a unionized shop.

(16) In fishing, a any of various plugs resembling an insect.

(17) In slang, a clipping of bedbug (mostly UK).

(18) A bogy; hobgoblin (extinct).

(19) In slang, as “bug-eyed”, protruding eyes (the medical condition exophthalmos).

(20) A slang term for the Volkswagen Beetle (Type 1; 1938-2003 & the two retro takes; 1997-2019).

(21) In broadcasting, a small (often transparent or translucent) image placed in a corner of a television program identifying the broadcasting network or channel.

(22) In aviation, a manually positioned marker in flight instruments.

(23) In gay (male) slang in the 1980s & 1990s as “the bug”, HIV/AIDS.

(24) In the slang of paleontology, a trilobite.

(25) In gambling slang, a small piece of metal used in a slot machine to block certain winning combinations.

(26) In gambling slang, a metal clip attached to the underside of a table, etc and used to hold hidden cards (a type of cheating).

(27) As the Bug (or Western Bug), a river in Eastern Europe flows through Belarus, Poland, and Ukraine with a total length of 481 miles (774 km).  The Southern Bug (530 miles (850 km)) in south west Ukraine flows into the Dnieper estuary and is some 530 miles (850 km) long.

(28) A past tense and past participle of big (obsolete).

(29) As ISO (international standard) 639-2 & ISO 639-3, the language codes for Buginese.

(30) To install a secret listening device in a room, building etc or on a telephone or other communications device.

(31) To badger, harass, bother, annoy or pester someone.

1615–1625: The original use was to describe insects, apparently as a variant of the earlier bugge (beetle), thought to be an alteration of the Middle English budde, from the Old English -budda (beetle) but etymologists are divided on whether the phrase “bug off” (please leave) is related to the undesired presence of insects or was of a distinct origin.  Bug, bugging & debug are nouns & verbs, bugged is a verb & adjective and buggy is a noun & adjective; the noun plural is bugs.  Although “unbug” makes structural sense (ie remove a bug, as opposed to the sense of “debug”), it doesn’t exist whereas forms such as the adjectives unbugged (not bugged) and unbuggable (not able to be bugged) are regarded as standard.

Nerd humor.

The array of compound forms meaning “someone obsessed with an idea, hobby etc) produced things like “shutterbug” (amateur photographer) & firebug (arsonist) seems first to have emerged in the mid nineteenth century.  The development of this into “a craze or obsession” is thought rapidly to have accelerated in the years just before World War I (1914-1918), again based on the notion of “bitten by the bug” or “caught the bug”, thus the idea of being infected with an unusual enthusiasm for something.  The use to mean a demon, evil spirit, spectre or hobgoblin was first recorded in the mid-fourteenth century and was a clipping of the Middle English bugge (scarecrow, demon, hobgoblin) or uncertain origin although it may have come from the Middle Welsh bwg (ghost; goblin (and linked to the Welsh bwgwl (threat (and earlier “fear”) and the Middle Irish bocanách (supernatural being).  There’s also speculation it may have come from the scary tales told to children which included the idea of a bugge (beetle) at a gigantic scale.  That would have been a fearsome sight and the idea remains fruitful to this day for artists and film-makers needing something frightening in the horror or SF (science fiction) genre.  The use in this sense is long obsolete although the related forms bugbear and bugaboo survive.  Dating from the 1570s, a bugbear was in folklore a kind of “large goblin”, used to inspire fear in children (both as a literary device & for purposes of parental control) and for adults it soon came to mean “a source of dread, resentment or irritation; in modern use it's an “ongoing problem”, a recurring obstacle or adversity or one’s pet peeve.  The obsolete form bugg dates from circa 1620s and was a reference to the troublesome bedbug, the construct a conflation of the middle English bugge (scarecrow, hobgoblin) and the Middle English budde (beetle).  The colloquial sense of “a microbe or germ” dates from 1919, the emergence linked to the misleadingly-named “Spanish flu” pandemic.

Bugs: A ground beetle (left), a first generation der Käfer (the Volkswagen Beetle, 1938-2003) (centre) and an "New Beetle" (1997-2011).  Despite the appearance, the "New Beetle" was of front engine & front-wheel-drive configuration, essentially a re-bodied Volkswagen Golf.  The new car was sold purely as a retro, the price paid for the style, certain packaging inefficiencies.  Few have ever questioned why the original VW Beetle picked up the nickname “bug”.

Like the rest of us, even scientists, entomologists and zoologists generally probably say “bug” in general conversation, whether about the insects or the viruses and such which cause disease but in writing academic papers they’ll take care to be more precise.  Because to most of us “bugs” can be any of the small, creepy pests which intrude on our lives (some of which are actually helpful in that quietly and unobtrusively they dispose of the really annoying bugs which bite us), the word is casually and interchangeably applied to bees, ants, bees, millipedes, beetles, spiders and anything else resembling an insect.  That use may be reinforced by the idea of the thing “bugging” us by their very presence.  To the professionals however, insects are those organisms in the classification Insecta, a very large class of animals, the members of which have a three-part body, six legs and (usually) two pairs of wings whereas a bug is a member of the order Hemiptera (which in the taxonomic system is within the Insecta class) and includes cicadas, aphids and stink bugs; to emphasize the point, scientists often speak of those in the order Hemiptera as “true bugs”.  The true bugs are those insects with mouthparts adapted for piercing and sucking, contained usually in a beak-shaped structure, a vision agonizingly familiar to anyone who has suffered the company of bedbugs.  That’s why lice are bugs and cockroaches are not but the latter will continue to be called bugs, often with some preceding expletive.

9 September 1947: The engineer's note (with physical evidence) of electronic computing's "first bug".

In computing, where the term “bug” came to be used to describe “glitches, crashes” and such, it has evolved to apply almost exclusively to software issues and even if events are caused by hardware flaws, unless it’s something obvious (small explosions, flame & smoke etc) most users probably assume a fault in some software layer.  The very first documented bug however was an interaction recorded on 9 September 1947 between the natural world and hardware, an engineer’s examination of an early (large) computer revealing an insect had sacrificially landed on one of the circuits, shorting it out and shutting-down the machine.  As proof, the unfortunate moth was taped to the report.  On a larger scale (zoologically rather than the hardware), the problem of small rodents such as mice entering the internals of printers, there to die from various causes (impact injuries, starvation, heat etc) remains not uncommon, resulting sometimes in mechanical damage, sometimes just the implications of decaying flesh.

Revelle's Bug Bomb, 1970.

The idea of a bug as a “defect, flaw, fault or glitch” in a mechanical or electrical device was first recorded in the late 1800s as engineer’s slang, the assumption being they wished to convey the idea of “a small fault” (and thus easily fixed, as opposed to some fundamental mistake which would necessitate a re-design).  Some sources suggest the origin lies with Thomas Edison (1847-1931) who is reported as describing the consequences of an insect “getting into the works”.  Programmers deploy an array of adjectives to "bug" (major, minor, serious, critical & non-critical etc) although between themselves (and certainly when disparaging of the code of others) the most commonly heard phrase is probably “stupid bug”.  The “debugging” (also as de-bugging) process is something with a wide definition but in general it refers to any action or set of actions taken to remove errors.  The name of the debug.exe (originally debug.com) program included with a number of (almost all 16 & 32-bit) operating systems was a little misleading because in addition to fixing things, it could be used for other purposes and is fondly remembered by those who wrote Q&D (quick & dirty) work-arounds which, written in assembler, ran very fast.  The verb debug was first used in 1945 in the sense of “remove the faults from a machine” and by 1964 it appeared in field service manuals documenting the steps to be taken to “remove a concealed microphone”.  Although the origin of the use of “bug” in computing (probably the now most commonly used context) can be traced to 1947, the term wasn’t widely used beyond universities, industry and government sites before the 1960s when the public first began to interact at scale with the implications (including the bugs) of those institutions using computerized processes.  Software (or any machinery) badly afflicted by bugs can be called “buggy”, a re-purposing of the use of an adjective dating from 1714 meaning “a place infested with bugs”.

Some bugs gained notoriety.  In the late 1990s, it wasn’t uncommon for the press to refer to the potential problems of computer code using a two-numeral syntax for years as the “Y2K bug” which was an indication of how wide was the vista of the common understanding of "bug" and one quite reasonable because that was how the consequences would be understood.  A massive testing & rectification effort was undertaken by the industry (and corporations, induced by legislation and the fear of litigation) and with the coming of 1 January 2000 almost nothing strange happened and that may also have been the case had nothing been done but, on the basis of the precautionary principle, it was the right approach.  Of course switching protocols to use four-numeral years did nothing about the Y10K bug but a (possible) problem 8000 years hence would have been of little interest to politicians or corporate boards.  Actually, Ynnn~K bugs will re-occur (theoretically with decreasing frequency) whenever a digit needs to be added.  The obvious solution is trailing zeros although if one thinks in terms of infinity, it may be that, in the narrow technical sense, such a solution would just create an additional problem although perhaps one of no practical significance.  Because of the way programmers exploit the way computers work, there have since the 1950s been other date (“time” to a computer) related “bugs” and management of these and the minor problems caused has been handled well.  Within the industry the feeling is things like the “Y2038 problem” will, for most of the planet, be similarly uneventful.

The DOSShell, introduced with PC-DOS 4.0; this was as graphical as DOS got.  The text-based DOSShell was bug-free and a reasonable advance over what came before but the power users had already adopted XTree as their preferred file handler.

Bugs can also become quirky industry footnotes.  As late as 1987, IBM had intended to release the update of PC-DOS 3.3 as version 3.4, reflecting the corporation’s roadmap of DOS as something of an evolutionary dead-end, doomed ultimately to end up in washing machine controllers and such while the consumer and corporate market would shift to OS/2, the new operating system which offered pre-emptive multi-tasking and access to bigger storage and memory addressing.  However, at that point, both DOS & OS/2 were being co-developed by IBM & Microsoft and agreement was reached to release a version 4 of DOS.  DOS 4 also included a way of accessing larger storage space (through a work-around with a program called share.exe) and more memory (in a way less elegant than the OS/2 approach but it did work, albeit more slowly), both things of great interest to Microsoft because they would increase the appeal of its upcoming Windows 3.0, a graphical shell which ran on top of DOS; unlike OS/2, Windows was exclusive to Microsoft and so was the revenue stream.  Unfortunately, it transpired the PC-DOS 4.0 memory tricks were “buggy” when used with some non-IBM hardware and the OS gained a bad reputation from which it would never recover.  By the time the code was fixed, Microsoft was ready to release its own version as MS-DOS 4.0 but, noting all the bad publicity, after some cosmetic revisions, the mainstream release was MS-DOS 4.01.  In the code of the earlier, bug-afflicted bits, there seems no substantive difference between MS-DOS 4.01 the few extant copies of MS-DOS 4.0.

Herbie, the love bug

Lindsay Lohan (left) among the bugs (centre) on the red carpet for the Los Angeles premiere of Herbie Fully Loaded (a 2005 remake of The Love Bug (1968)), El Capitan Theater, Hollywood, Los Angeles, 19 June 19, 2005.  The Beetle (right) was one of the many replica “Herbies” in attendance and, on the day, Ms Lohan (using the celebrity-endorsed black Sharpie) autographed the glove-box lid, removed for the purpose. 

In idiomatic and other uses, bug has a long history.  By the early twentieth century “bugs” meant “mad; crazy" and by then “bug juice” had been in use for some thirty years, meaning both “propensity of the use of alcoholic drink to induce bad behaviour” and “bad whiskey” (in the sense of a product being of such dubious quality it was effectively a poison).  A slang dictionary from 1811 listed “bug-hunter” as “an upholsterer”, an allusion to the fondness bugs and other small creatures show for sheltering in the dark, concealed parts of furniture.  As early as the 1560s, a “bug-word” was a word or phrase which “irritated or vexed”.  The idea of “bug-eyed” was in use by the early 1870s and that’s thought either to be a humorous mispronunciation of bulge or (as is thought more likely) an allusion to the prominent, protruding eyes of creatures like frogs, the idea being they sat on the body like “a pair of bugs”.  The look became so common in the movies featuring aliens from space that by the early 1950s the acronym BEM (bug-eyed monster) had become part of industry slang.  The correct term for the medical condition of "bulging eyes" is exophthalmos.

Lindsay Lohan in promotional poster for Herbie: Fully Loaded (2005).

To “bug someone” in the sense of “to annoy or irritate” seems not to have been recorded until 1949 and while some suggest the origin of that was in swing music slang, it remains obscure.  The now rare use of “bug off” to mean “to scram, to skedaddle” is documented since 1956 and is of uncertain origin but may be linked to the Korean War (1950-1953) era US Army slang meaning “stage a precipitous retreat”, first used during a military reversal.  The ultimate source was likely the UK, Australian & New Zealand slang “bugger off” (please leave).  The “doodle-bug” was first described in 1865 and was Southern US dialect for a type of beetle.  In 1944, the popular slang for the German Vergeltungswaffen eins (the V-1 (reprisal weapon 1) which was the first cruise missile) was “flying bomb” or “buzz bomb”) but the Royal Air Force (RAF) pilots preferred “doodle-bug”.

The ultimate door-stop for aircraft hangers: Bond Bug 700.

The popularity of three wheeler cars in the UK during the post-war years was a product of cost breakdown.  They were taxed at a much lower rate than conventional four-wheel vehicles, were small and thus economical and could be operated by anyone with only a motorcycle licence.  Most were genuine (if not generous) four-seaters and thus an attractive alternative for families and, being purely utilitarian, there were few attempts to introduce elements of style.  The Bond Bug (1970-1974) was an exception in that it was designed to appeal to the youth market with a sporty-looking two-seater using the then popular “wedge-styling” and in its most powerful form it could touch 80 mph (130 km/h), faster than any other three wheeler available.  The bug was designed by Vienna-born British designer Tom Karen (1926–2022) who intended it as a “Ferrari for 16-year-olds” which may hint he knew more about cars than young males but in the 1970s such comparisons often were made, a tester in one magazine describing the diminutive Fiat 127 (1971-1983) as “the 0.9 litre Ferrari” which was journalistic licence writ large but people knew what he meant.

An infestation of Bugs.

However, the UK in 1973 introduced VAT (value-added tax, a consumption tax) and this removed many of the financial advantages three-wheelers offered (it also doomed much of the “kit-car” business in which customers could buy the parts and assemble them with their own labor).  In an era of rising prosperity, the appeal of the compromise waned and coupled with some problems in the early productions runs, in 1974, after some 2¼ thousand Bugs had been built, the zany little machine was dropped; not even the oil crisis of the time (which had doomed a good number of bigger, thirstier cars) and the nasty recession which followed could save it.  Even in its best years it was never all that successful, essentially because it was really a novelty and there were “real” cars available for less money.  Still, the survivors have a following in their niche at the lower end of the collector market and it's a machine truly like no other.

The business of spying is said to be the “second oldest profession” and even if not literally true, few doubt the synergistic callings of espionage and war are among man’s earliest and most enduring endeavors.  Although the use of “bug” to mean “equip with a concealed microphone” seems not to have been in use until 1946, bugging devices probably go back thousands of years (in a low-tech sort of way) and those known to have been used in Tudor-era England (1485-1603) are representative of the way available stuff was adapted, the most popular being tubular structures which, if pressed against a thin wall (or preferably a door’s keyhole) enabled one to listen to what was being discussed in a closed room.  Bugging began to assume its modern form when messages began to be transmitted over copper wires which could stretch for thousands of miles and the early term for a “phone bug” was “phone tap”, based upon the idea of “tapping into” the line as one might a water pipe.  Bugs (the name picked-up because many of the early devices were small, black and “bug-like”), whether as concealed microphones or phone taps, swiftly became part of the espionage inventory in diplomacy, commerce and crime and as technology evolved, so did the bugging techniques.

Henry Cabot Lodge Jr (1902–1985), US Ambassador to the UN (United Nations) at a May 1960 session of the Security Council, using the Great Seal bug to illustrate the extent of Soviet bugging.  The context was a tu quoque squabble between the Cold War protagonists, following Soviet revelations about the flight-paths of the American's U2 spy planes.  Lodge would be Richard Nixon’s (1913-1994; US president 1969-1974) running mate in that year's presidential election.     

A classic bug of High Cold War was the Great Seal bug, (known to the security services as the thing), a Soviet designed and built concealed listening device which was so effective because it used passive transmission protocols for its audio signal, thereby rendering it invisible to conventional “bug-detection” techniques.  The bug was concealed inside large, carved wooden rendition of the US Great Seal which, in 1945, the Kremlin presented as a “gift of friendship” to the US Ambassador to the USSR Averell Harriman (1891-1986); in a nice touch, it was a group of Russian school children who handed over the carving.  Sitting in the ambassador’s Moscow office for some seven years, it was a masterpiece of its time because (1) being activated only when exposed to a low-energy radio signal which Soviet spies would transmit from outside, when subjected to a US “bug detection” it would appear to be a piece of wood and (2) as it needed no form of battery or other power supply (and indeed, no maintenance at all), its lifespan was indefinite.  Had it not by chance been discovered by a communications officer at the nearby British embassy who happened to be tuned to the same frequency while the Soviets were sending their signal, it may well have remained in place for decades.  Essentially, the principles of the Great Seal bug were those used in modern radio-frequency identification (RFID) systems.

Sycophancy

Sycophancy (pronounced sik-uh-fuhn-see)

(1) The usually self-seeking, servile flattery or fawning behavior of a sycophant.

(2) The character or conduct of a sycophant.

(3) An informer, a bearer of tales (obsolete).

1537: From the Latin sȳcophanta (informer, trickster), from the Ancient Greek sykophantia (false accusation, slander; conduct of a sȳcophanta) from συκοφάντης (sykophántēs), the construct being sûkon (fig) + phaínō (I show).  The gesture of "showing the fig" was an “obscene gesture of phallic significance”, made by sticking the thumb between two fingers, a display which vaguely resembles a fig and was symbolic of a vagina (sûkon also meant “vulva”), the gesture understood in many cultures in many places.  Technically, it was a way of expressing one’s thoughts without actually speaking an obscenity.  The politicians in Ancient Greece were said not to use this vulgar gesture but urged their followers to deploy it in the taunting of opponents, a tactic familiar to observers of modern politicians who like to delegate the dirty work to others.  It was cognate with Italian sicofante and the Spanish sicofanta and the later Greek form was sykophantia, from sykophantes.  Sycophancy, sycophantism & sycophant are nouns, sycophantize is a verb, sycophantic & sycophantish are adjectives and sycophantishly is an adverb; the noun plural is plural sycophancies (sycophants is more commonly used).

When young, Lindsay Lohan had her troubles and in a 2012 interview blamed them on loneliness, “sycophants and bad influences”, adding “be careful who you surround yourself with”.

As late as the sixteenth century, sycophancy was still used in the now long obsolete sense of “informer, talebearer, slanderer” which was from the French sycophante and directly from Latin sȳcophanta.  Such was the influence of the often fanciful notions of Medieval scholars whose writings were copied with such frequency that by virtue of sheer volume they assume authority that it wasn’t until the twentieth century the old tale that a sycophant was “one who informed the authorities against someone unlawfully exporting figs” was universally discredited.  The general sense of “a parasite; mean, servile flatterer” (especially of those in power) was in use in English by the 1570s.  The phrase “yes-man” (a man who agrees from self-interest or fear with everything put to him by a superior) was first used in 1912, a creation of American English, the male-centric wording indicative of the predominance at the time of men in corporate structures but there's no exclusivity of gender, women too can be “yes-men” although “yes-women” doesn't as easily roll from the tongue and nor does the collective “yes people”.  To even suggest someone is a “yes man” or “yes woman” may be at least a micro aggression so to avoid compounding the offence with another “yes person” is recommended.

The sexy fig.

The modern meaning is that of the "insincere flatterer", the "yes man", the motive presumed usually to be personal gain.  Historians from antiquity suggest the origin of the word lies in agricultural policy, Plutarch (46–circa 120) writing that the source was in laws forbidding the export of figs, and that those who made accusations against others of illegally exporting figs were therefore called sycophants.  Plutarch was citing "Solon's Laws" which included regulations which stipulated also: “(1) trees should not be planted within five feet of a neighbour’s property, except in the case of olives and fig-trees, which were not to be planted within nine feet (for these trees spread out their roots farther than others, and spoil the growth of any others by taking away their nourishment and by giving off hurtful juices), (2) Trenches and pits must be dug as far away from another man’s property as they were deep and (3) no hive of bees was to be placed within three hundred feet of those already established by another man.”  Because the laws permitted only the export of oil, the export of figs was forbidden and the men who informed against those who had done so were therefore called sycophants (fig-shower).

Later, Sir William Blackstone's (1723–1780) Commentaries on the Laws of England (1765–1770) noted there were laws making it a capital offense to break into a garden and steal figs, and that law was thought so odious that informers were given the name sycophants.   Another variant in the fig jam was that a sycophant was a shaker of trees: before the court, the sycophant's false accusations makes the accused yield up the truth; in the fig grove, sycophant's shaking forces the tree to yield up its fruit.  Certainly, the fig linkage runs strong in the language, the making of false accusations held to be such an insult to the accused it was said to be "showing the fig", an obscene gesture “of phallic significance" and that false charges were often so flimsy as to be worth “not a fig".

Modern historians enjoy the explanations but tend to be dismissive of their veracity though all seem to agree the original sense is of a word used to disparage one who, by the levelling of unjustified accusations, has perverted the legal system beyond a mere abuse of process.  Pervading all is the suggestion the term was thought always at least slightly obscene, the linkage presumably because of the symbolism of the fig in ancient Greek culture in that sense.  The attachment to legal process in Athenian culture, separate from any hint of obscenity, did grow and the net was cast wide, sycophants not only vexatious litigants but also those who issued writs merely to try to induce defendants to make a payment in exchange for dropping the case or third parties otherwise unconnected to the sometime ancient matters before the court, appearing only to seek an undeserved profit.  In time, to accuse a litigant of sycophancy became a serious thing, such was the opprobrium society had come to direct towards the conduct and there are surviving texts written by those defending themselves from the charge.  Athenian law responded, imposing fines on litigants whose matters were found vexatious or which were clearly an abuse of process and there are echoes still of these acts in modern Greek domestic law where, as in France, sycophant is used still in the original sense.    The phenomenon attracted the playwrights too, explored by Aristophanes (circa 446 BC-circa 386 BC) in his satires.

Impact Of Wealth (1563) by Philips Galle (1537–1612) & Hadrianus Junius (1511–1575).

In the English-speaking world, the meaning shift seems to have happened during the Renaissance, meanings old and new running in parallel until the sense of the "insincere flatterer" came to prevail.  It was an organic linguistic morphing, not something induce by some event or individual, the common thread probably that both behaviors were perceived parasitic and insincere. 

Notable Sycophants in History and Literature

Dr Joseph Goebbels (1897-1945; Nazi propaganda minister 1933-1945) had been an early critic of Adolf Hitler (1889-1945; Führer (leader) and German head of government 1933-1945 & head of state 1934-1945) so to redeem himself, spent the rest of his career in fawning devotion, initiating the Heil Hitler salute and insisting on the use of Der Führer (the leader, originally just a party title) as an official title. His letters and diaries are full of groveling praise and his propaganda campaigns created the modern personality cult.  In fairness to Goebbels, his work was inspired and sometimes brilliant and when the fortunes of war turned there was even the hint of criticism (his acute sense of things picking up the difference between a "leadership crisis" and a "leader crisis") but other sycophants in the Third Reich were less impressive.  While Goebbels’ work sparkled, youth leader, Baldur von Schirach (1907-1974; party functionary 1931-1945), wrote verse after verse of dreary poetry in praise of Hitler though there’s no suggestion the Führer much troubled himself to read his oeuvre.  At least Goebbels and Schirach stayed loyal to the end (though the latter would recant when on trial for his life in Nuremberg (1945-1946) and avoid the hanging he deserved.  Sycophant number one and head of the SS, Heinrich Himmler (1900-1945; head of the SS 1929-1945), called himself “the truest of the true” and Hitler agreed, often referring to the Reichführer-SS as “der treue Heinrich" (the faithful Heinrich), and, although never part of the inner circle, was much valued for his sycophancy and unconditional obedience.  Himmler though, by 1944 and perhaps earlier, worked out things weren’t going too well and eventually, in negotiating with the enemy and planning ways to ingratiate himself to General Dwight Eisenhower (1890-1969; US president 1953-1961), delivered the Führer a final stab in the back and the one which seems to have hurt the Führer the most.  By then it was already too late and Hitler has long concluded none of his sycophants were worthy enough to be his successor, deciding Rudolf Hess (1894–1987; Deputy Führer 1933-1941) had gone mad and Hermann Göring (1893–1946; leading Nazi 1922-1945) had lost the sympathy of the German people.  Both judgements were fair enough but his reason for rejecting Himmler made sense only in Hitler's bizarre world view: He thought the Reichführer-SS "unartistic".

Julia Gillard looking at Penny Wong.

Appointed to cabinet by Prime Minister Julia Gillard (b 1961; Australian prime minister 2010-2013), Australian politician Penny Wong (b 1968) Australian minister for Foreign Affairs since 2022 (and one of the Australian Senate's three "mean girls")) was never reticent in praising Gillard’s fine judgment and feminist solidarity.  That was until she finally worked out things weren’t going too well and so voted to back-stab Gillard and resuscitate the previously knifed Dr Kevin Rudd (b 1957; Australian prime-minister 2007-2010 & 2013).  Modern identity politics helpfully provides Wong with handy cover; any criticism, however justified, she can condemn as misogyny, homophobia or racism.  Centuries before, early in the reign of Caligula (Gaius Caesar Augustus Germanicus, 12–41; Roman emperor 37-41), he fell ill, inspiring one Roman to offer to sacrifice own life if the emperor recovered. This kind, if extravagant, vow was declared publicly, in the hope his show his deep loyalty would elicit some generous award.  Caligula did recover but the sycophant’s tactic backfired; the dutiful emperor decided to accept the chap’s offer and ordered his execution.

Secretary of State Dr Henry Kissinger and President Richard Nixon, East Room, White House, 22 September 1973.  

There are many who list former US National Security Advisor and Secretary of State, Dr Henry Kissinger (1923-2023; US national security advisor 1969-1975 & secretary of state 1937-1977) as among the famous sycophants, a reasonable achievement in Washington DC, a city full of the breed, but it’s probably unfair although, in his fascinating relationship with President Richard Nixon (1913-1994; US president 1969-1974), he certainly aimed to please.  Kissinger met with Israeli prime-minister Golda Meir (1898–1978; prime-minister of Israel 1969-1974) in 1973 and she asked him to pressure Moscow to allow more Soviet Jews to emigrate to avoid persecution.  Nixon, intent on détente with the USSR, sought to avoid the request. Kissinger, himself Jewish, responded “…the emigration of Jews from the Soviet Union is not an objective of American foreign policy and if they put Jews into gas chambers in Russia, it’s not an American concern… maybe it’s a humanitarian concern”.  Not for nothing was Dr Kissinger thought dean of the school of power-realists.

Plácido Domingo (b 1941) in Giuseppe Verdi’s (1813–1901) Otello (1993), a studio recording from Paris noted for its technical perfection.  It featured Cheryl Studer (b 1955) as Desdemona and in Act IV she delivered perhaps the loveliest version of the Willow Song available on disc.

In David Copperfield (1849-1850), Charles Dickens (1812–1870) created one of literature’s most repulsive sycophants, the reptilian Uriah Heep.  Dickens, never one to understate his characters, ensures readers will revile Heep by emphasizing his physical creepiness: cadaverous and lanky, with clammy hands and sleepless eyes.  Trained in being “umble” by his father, Heep is always quick to affirm his lowly station and abase himself.  Chaplain to the Bishop of Barchester, the duplicitous Obadiah Slope in Anthony Trollope’s (1815-1882) Barchester Towers (1857), epitomizes the "lick up-kick down" sycophant,  fawning before the powerful, tyrannical towards subordinates.  For Australians, one of the real pleasures in reading Barchester Towers is imagining Bronwyn Bishop (b 1942; speaker of the Australian House of Representatives 2013-2015) when picturing the bishop’s wife (both deserving the memorable phrase "that ghastly woman").  Nobody however did it better than William Shakespeare (1564–1616) in Othello (1603).  The play is a roll-call of strategies for ingratiation, subversion, and destruction, as Iago corrupts the mind of the noble Othello. No work in English better shows the devastating personal consequences of sycophancy or so starkly renders its intricate ties to other vices for Shakespeare knew the sycophant is capable of every fraud, every hypocrisy, every deceit.

Mr Dutton in one of his happier moments.  Interestingly, despite many opportunities, Mr Dutton has never denied being a Freemason.

In politics, the word sycophantic seems surprising rare, probably because punchier forms like “arse-kisser”, “arse-licker”, “brown noser”, “suck-up”, “lap-dog”, “flunky” & “lackey” are preferred, at least behind closed doors because all these would probably be ruled “unparliamentary”.  Of course it’s behind closed doors the more amusing stuff happens, the internecine party squabbles and factional battles more intense and pursued with more passion than the often confected sturm und drang between actual opponents.  Still words like “obsequious” and “sycophantic” have the advantage they can be used on the floor or parliament and in May 2024, in the Australian House of Representatives, sycophantic made a rare appearance when Peter Dutton (b 1970; leader of the opposition and leader of the Australian Liberal Party since May 2022) spoke: “Why did this weak and incompetent prime minister [Anthony Albanese (b 1963; prime-minister of Australia since 2022)] put his close and sycophantic relationship with Jacinda Ardern ahead of the safety of Australians?”

The context of Mr Dutton’s waspish attack was the matter of Ministerial Directive 99 (MD-99) of 23 March 2023, issued by Andrew Giles (b 1973; Minister for Immigration, Citizenship and Multicultural Affairs since 2022), an instruction to his department which required the Administrative Appeals Tribunal (the AAT, a statutory authority soon to be replaced by the Administrative Review Tribunal (ART) & Administrative Review Council (ARC)) to consider the cases of non-citizens facing deportation pursuant to section 501 (as revised in 2014) of the Migration Act (1958) by applying a number of criteria including “Strength, nature and duration of ties to Australia”.  Previously, the law required mandatory visa cancellations for any non-citizens sentenced to jail for twelve months or more, or those convicted of a child sex offence.  The way MD-99 was applied by the tribunal resulted in a number of serious offenders not being deported, some of whom subsequently re-offended, one currently awaiting trial for murder.

Two Fabians: Jacinda Ardern and Anthony Albanese, press conference, Sydney, July 2022.  It has been confirmed the man taking the photograph is not Mr Dutton.

The origin of MD-99 was in a dinner in July 2022 between Mr Albanese and Jacinda Ardern (b 1980; Prime Minister of New Zealand 2017-2023).  The matter of criminals who hadn’t lived in New Zealand for decades, sometimes having left as infants, had been a matter of concern to successive New Zealand Governments but until 2023 no Australian government had been prepared to alter the policy.  However, Ms Ardern was at the time something of a political pin-up of the left and a role model to social democrats around the planet and their admiration for her progressive policies and general “wokeness” at least verged on the sycophantic.  Mr Albanese and Mr Giles are both members of the Australian Labor Party’s (ALP) Socialist Left (or Progressive Left) faction, a label which means less than once it did and shouldn’t be taken too literally but the tribal aspect of the factionalism is as strong as ever.

The idea of dozens (literally) of violent criminals being released into the community whereas prior to MD-99 they would have been deported created a furore and not even the usual suspects felt it wise to leap to a defence of the policy.  Following the manual, Mr Giles for a few toughed it out with the usual obfuscation but seldom has the tactic sounded so unconvincing.  He was defended (at least to the extent of not being sacked) by the prime minister which really he was compelled to do because it would have been his instruction to Mr Giles which resulted in MD-99.  Mr Albanese also stuck to the manual, having the department trawl the archives so he could quote instances of criminals being released into the community a decade-odd earlier when Mr Dutton was immigration minister.  Unlike the Nuremberg trial (1945-1946), there was no International Military Tribunal (IMT) to deny use of the tu quoque defense.

Andrew Giles, House of Representatives, Canberra, Australia, May 2024.

However, after a few days it became obvious deniability was never going to become plausible and the issue couldn’t be spun out of the media cycle.  Mr Albanese announced MD-99 would be dumped, replaced by the overriding direction that “…community safety must be considered the top priority in deciding whether to allow someone to remain in Australia”.  Mr Giles said the new direction would “…ensure the protection of the community outweighs any other consideration", adding this had always been the government's “highest priority”.  Neither Mr Albanese nor Mr Giles have commented on the tone of their discussions behind closed doors and it’s assumed an account is unlikely to appear in any memoir either may write.