Hansard

Hansard (pronounced han-sard)

(1) The official verbatim published reports of the debates and proceedings in the British Parliament.  Separate editions are published for both the House of Commons and House of Lords.

(2) A similar report kept by other legislative bodies in other countries, most of which trace their political systems back to colonial origins in the British Empire.

1812: Named after Thomas Curson Hansard, a London printer and publisher, who became the first official printer to the parliament at Westminster.

Prior to 1771, the British parliament was a secretive body, there existed a published official record of action but no record of debate, the publication of anything said on the floor of either house actually a breach of Parliamentary privilege and punishable by a court.  However, as independent newspapers became more numerous, many began publishing unofficial accounts.  Parliament responded with fines, dismissal and imprisonment.  Some editors used the device of styling their reports of debates as those of fictitious societies but parliament continued to resist until 1771 when several judges declined to hear the cases and a number of more far-sighted politicians began to understand how this free publicity could be turned to advantage.  By then, it was not uncommon for speeches to be crafted for the effect they would have when printed, rather than a pieces of oratory intended to impress the house.  The early newspapers, the editors of some which encouraged (and sometimes printed, even if edited) “letter to the editor”, were the slow-motion social medial of the age.

The green and red covers used by the UK Hansards reflect the shades of the leather upholstery in each house.

Eventually, editions of the parliamentary debates were produced by printer Thomas Curson Hansard (1776-1833), issued under his name from 1812.  These were periodicals which circulated by subscription and, in another modern touch, Hansard didn’t employ stenographers to take down notes, instead using a multiplicity of sources most of which were the morning newspapers.  Hansard was thus the Google news feed of the day, an aggregator with the revenue model of on-selling the work of others with no payment to the source.  Google has of late been compelled to offer its sources a few crumbs; Hansard never did.  The early editions of Hansard cannot absolutely be relied upon as a verbatim record of what was said.

In 1909, the parliament established its own staff of official Hansard reporters, a separate office under the auspices of the speaker (Commons) and Lord Chancellor (Lords).  Hansards of today can be thought a comprehensive account of every speech (although one wonders about those of some legislatures with no great tradition of transparency) but the reports are not strictly verbatim but substantially so with repetitions, redundancies (and the odd vulgarity) omitted.  Obvious mistakes (including grammatical errors) are corrected, but nothing can be added or omitted which adds to or detracts from the meaning.  There is some latitude in this: A former Australian prime-minister, the Country Party’s Sir Earle Page (1880-1961; prime minister of Australia 1939) was notorious for quoting whatever figures came into his head, then later providing the correct numbers for inclusion in the official Hansard.

Not all interjections make it into Hansard but the unrecorded homophonous gem of an exchange in the Australian parliament between Sir Winton Turnbull (1899-1980) and Gough Whitlam (1916–2014; prime minister 1972-1975) deserved to:

Sir Winton Turnbull (Country Party, Mallee): "I’m a country member and…"

Mr Gough Whitlam (ALP, Werriwa): "I remember."

List of assemblies which publish Hansards.

Parliament of the United Kingdom and the UK's devolved institutions, Parliament of Canada and the Canadian provincial and territorial legislatures, Parliament of Australia and the Australian state and territory parliaments, Parliament of South Africa and South Africa's provincial legislatures, Parliament of Barbados, East African Legislative Assembly, Parliament of New Zealand, Legislative Council of Hong Kong, Parliament of Malaysia, National Parliament of Papua New Guinea, Parliament of Singapore, Legislative Council of Brunei, Parliament of Sri Lanka, Parliament of Trinidad and Tobago, National Assembly of Kenya, National Assembly of Tanzania, Parliament of Ghana, Parliament of Uganda, Parliament of Mauritius, Parliament of Jamaica, States of Jersey, States of Guernsey, Tynwald, the Parliament of the Isle of Man, National Assembly of Nigeria, National Assembly of Namibia, Parliament of Botswana, Parliament of Zimbabwe.

Lindsay Lohan and Harsard

Lindsay Lohan and the great "slagging off Kettering scandal".

Because her "lifestyle choices" in the early twenty-first century made her name a synecdoche for this and that, Lindsay Lohan has been mentioned in parliamentary proceedings in a number of jurisdictions.  The best known came as one of the few amusing footnotes to the depressing business which was the Brexit referendum, the mechanism through which the UK withdrew from its membership of the European Union (EU), Ms Lohan helpfully keeping the world informed of the vote's progress via tweets on X (the known as Twitter).  One tweet mentioned Kettering and the previously obscure Philip Hollobone (b 1964; Tory MP for Kettering since 2005), knew honor demanded he respond to the actor “slagging off” his constituency.  The offending tweet caught the eye of the outraged MP on that evening in in 2016, after it was announced Kettering (in the Midlands county of Northamptonshire) had voted 61-39% to leave the EU; it read: “Sorry, but Kettering where are you?”

Philip Hollobone MP, official portrait (2020).

Mr Hollobone, a long-time "leaver" (a supporter of Brexit), wasn’t about to let a mean girl "remainer's" (one who opposed Brexit) slag of Kettering escape consequences and he took his opportunity in the House of Commons, saying: “On referendum night a week ago, the pro-Remain American actress, Lindsay Lohan, in a series of bizarre tweets, slagged off areas of this country that voted to leave the European Union.  At one point she directed a fierce and offensive tweet at Kettering, claiming that she had never heard of it and implying that no one knew where it was.  Apart from the fact that it might be the most average town in the country, everyone knows where Kettering is.”  Whether a phrase like “London, Paris, New York, Kettering” was at the time quite as familiar to most as it must have been to Mr Hollobone isn’t clear but he did try to help by offering advice, inviting Miss Lohan to switch on Kettering's Christmas lights that year, saying it would “redeem her political reputation”.  Unfortunately, that proved not possible because of a clash of appointments but thanks to the Tory Party, at least all know the bar has been lowered: Asking where a town sits on the map is now “slagging it off”.  Learning that is an example of why we should all "read our daily Hansards", an observation Mr Whitlam apparently once made, suggesting his estimation of the reading habits of the general population might have differed from reality.

Screen grab from the "apology video" Lindsay Lohan sent the residents of Kettering advising she'd not be able to switch on their Christmas lights because of her "busy schedule".

Skank

Skank (pronounced skangk)

(1) In the slang of certain classes, rhythmically to dance in a loose-limbed manner.

(2) In the pejorative slang of certain classes, a woman thought unattractive and disreputable, especially one with an air of tawdry promiscuity.

(3) Any substance that is particularly foul, unhygienic or unpleasant (obsolete).

(4) A slovenly style of dress, possibly imitative of dishevelled heroin addicts (obsolete).

(5) To steal from; to swindle (obsolete).

1965: Origin uncertain though much speculation.  The sense of an "unattractive woman" and usually one of loose virtue first noted in 1965, thought most probably descended from the 1920s skag in this sense, possibly by means of an imperfect echoic.  The verbal meaning "dance to reggae music" is from 1976 and almost certainly not the same word.  Etymologists suggest it’s most likely a compound construct of some kind, either a blend of skeevy (unattractive) + rank (dirty, smelly) or, more improbably, scold +‎ brank (Middle English meaning frolicsome and often lascivious conduct).  All agree that despite the similarities, the Danish skank (cognate with English shank) used as a noun in Swedish since 1635, is unrelated, a noun is based on the older, now obsolete adjectives skank and skink (limping, lame on one leg).  Skank is a noun & verb, skanker is a noun, skanked & skanking are verbs, skanky, skankier & skankiest are adjectives; the noun plural is skanks.  Despite the existence of the noun skanker and the frequent use of the form as a slur against women, there’s no evidence of skankee) and despite what seems an obvious need, there's no acceptance of the adjective skankish as a standard word.  For one pondering on a group of skanks, should one feel the need to rate them, the comparative is skankier and the superlative skankiest.  

One of Mark’s many moments

Mark Latham.

Australian politician Mark Latham (b 1961; leader of the Australian Federal Labor Party and Her Majesty's loyal opposition 2003-2005), once described Murdoch press legal commentator, The Australian’s Janet Albrechtsen (b 1966; by Barry Goldwater out of Ayn Rand) as a “shanky ho”.  Later he claimed he didn’t, at the time, know what it meant, blaming a woman for putting him up to it.  In his youth, it must have been a remarkably sheltered life; apparently the only soul to grow up in Sydney’s western suburbs without learning what ‘skanky ho’ means.  He should have got out more.

According to Latham, a woman who was an advisor to fellow Labor parliamentarian Carmen Lawrence (b 1948; Premier of Western Australia 1990-1993) challenged him to describe Albrechtsen as “a skanky-ho who must die.”  Ms Albrechtsen excites much hatred among women of the left; they think she's feminism’s equivalent of a class traitor.

Ms Janet Albrechtesen

Although claiming he had no idea what ‘skanky ho’ meant, he anyway took the bait, later admitting not being able to say no to a challenge was “…my problem.”   So, first chance he got, he went into parliament and “…described dirty Janet as a skanky ho who will die in a ditch to defend the Liberal Party” which wasn’t quite what was suggested but close enough to be in the spirit of the bet.  Perhaps fortunately, the speech into which the line was interpolated was in the debate about a financial sector legislation amendment bill so the handful of people listening (or pretending to) probably had no more idea than him what ‘skanky ho’ meant.

Actually, ‘skanky ho’ appears in the Hansard, the record of proceedings, only because, in a mistake Latham described as “…hopeless…” he said “shanky ho” and felt obliged to correct the record.  That made things worse because, as he admitted, it was “…maybe not a smart move, as it turns out this is the equivalent of calling someone a filthy piece of rugby hot-box.  Outrageous when you think about it…”  That wasn’t exactly a mea culpa but by Latham’s standards, it came close.  In probably Australia's most remarkable political transformation since former Labor prime-minister Billy Hughes (1862–1952; prime minister of Australia 1915-1923) washed up decades later as attorney-general in a conservative cabinet, Mr Latham now sits in the New South Wales (NSW) Legislative Council (the state's upper house), in 2019 winning a seat for Pauline Hanson's One Nation and gaining re-election in 2023.  One Nation is a difficult political party to describe in the usual language of political science but most seem to settle on "right-wing populist" although much of its (somewhat fluid) philosophy seems often remote from both traditional conservatism and neo-liberalism.  It's probably best understood as the brand and personal platform of Pauline Hanson (b 1954), its identity (and likely its future) as tied to her as the now defunct Kadima was to old Ariel Sharon (1928–2014; prime minister of Israel 2001-2006).

Carpet

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Harlot

Harlot (pronounced hahr-luht)

(1) A prostitute or promiscuous woman; one given to the wanton; lewd; low; base.

(2) By extension, in political discourse, an unprincipled person (now rare).

(3) A person given to low conduct; a rogue; a villain; a cheat; a rascal (obsolete).

(4) To play the harlot; to practice lewdness.

Circa 1200: From the Middle English harlot (young idler, rogue), from the Old French harlot, herlot & arlot (rascal; vagabond; tramp”), of obscure origin but thought probably of Germanic origin, either a derivation of harjaz (“army; camp; warrior; military leader”) or a diminutive of karilaz (man; fellow); most speculate the first element is from hari (army).  It was cognates with the Old Provençal arlot, the Old Spanish arlote and the Italian arlotto.  The long obsolete Middle English carlot (a churl; a common man; a person (male or female) of low birth; a boor; a rural dweller, peasant or countryman) is thought probably related.  Harlot was a noun and (less often) a verb, harlotry a noun and harlotize a verb; the present participle was harloting (or harlotting), the simple past and past participle harloted (or harlotted) and there’s no evidence exotic forms like harlotistic or harlotic ever existed, however useful they might have been.  Harlot is a noun & verb, harlotry is a noun, harlotish is an adjective, harlotize and harloted & harloting are verbs; the noun plural is harlots.  The adjective harlotesque is non-standard.

Harlot as a surname dates from at least the mid-late 1100s but by circa 1200 was being used to describe a “vagabond, someone of no fixed occupation, an idle rogue" and was applied almost exclusively to men in the Middle English and Old French.  Geoffrey Chaucer (circa 1345-1400) used harlot in a positive as well as pejorative sense and in medieval English texts it was applied to jesters, buffoons, jugglers and later to actors.  What is the now prevalent meaning (prostitute, unchaste woman) was originally the secondary sense but it had probably developed as early as the late fourteenth century, being well-documented by the early fifteenth.  Doubtless, it was the appearance in sixteenth century English translations of the Bible (as a euphemism for "strumpet, whore") which cemented the association.

In harlotesque mode: Lindsay Lohan in fancy dress as Suicide Squad's (2016) Harley Quinn, Halloween party, London, November 2016.  It may be a cliché but for purposes of fancy dress, fishnet stockings (or tights) are the motif of choice for those wanting the "harlot look". 

The biblical imprimatur didn’t so much extend the meaning as make it gender-specific.  The noun harlotry (loose, crude, or obscene behavior; sexual immorality; ribald talk or jesting) had been in use since the late fourteenth century and the choice of harlot in biblical translation is thought an example of linguistic delicacy, a word like “strumpet” though too vulgar for a holy text and “jezebel” too historically specific.  In this, harlot is part of a long though hardly noble tradition of crafting or adapting words as derogatory terms to be applied to women.  It has to be admitted there are nuances between many but one is impressed there was thought to be such a need to be offensive to women that English contains so many: promiscuous, skeezer, slut, whore, concubine, courtesan, floozy, hooker, hussy, nymphomaniac, streetwalker, tom, strumpet, tramp, call girl, lady of the evening, painted woman etc.  So the bible is influential although there’s a perhaps surprising difference in the translations of that prescriptive duo, Leviticus & Ezekiel: In the King James Version (KJV 1611), harlot appears in thirty-eight versus, but once in Leviticus, nine times in Ezekiel, some of the memorable being:.

Genesis 38:24: And it came to pass about three months after, that it was told Judah, saying, Tamar thy daughter in law hath played the harlot; and also, behold, she [is] with child by whoredom. And Judah said, Bring her forth, and let her be burnt.

Leviticus 21:14: A widow, or a divorced woman, or profane, [or] an harlot, these shall he not take: but he shall take a virgin of his own people to wife.

Joshua 6:25: And Joshua saved Rahab the harlot alive, and her father's household, and all that she had; and she dwelleth in Israel [even] unto this day; because she hid the messengers, which Joshua sent to spy out Jericho.

Isaiah 1:21: How is the faithful city become an harlot! it was full of judgment; righteousness lodged in it; but now murderers.

Ezekiel 16:15: But thou didst trust in thine own beauty, and playedst the harlot because of thy renown, and pouredst out thy fornications on every one that passed by; his it was.

Ezekiel 16:41: And they shall burn thine houses with fire, and execute judgments upon thee in the sight of many women: and I will cause thee to cease from playing the harlot, and thou also shalt give no hire any more.

Ezekiel 23:19: Yet she multiplied her whoredoms, in calling to remembrance the days of her youth, wherein she had played the harlot in the land of Egypt.

Ezekiel 23:44: Yet they went in unto her, as they go in unto a woman that playeth the harlot: so went they in unto Aholah and unto Aholibah, the lewd women.

Amos 7:17: Therefore thus saith the LORD; Thy wife shall be an harlot in the city, and thy sons and thy daughters shall fall by the sword, and thy land shall be divided by line; and thou shalt die in a polluted land: and Israel shall surely go into captivity forth of his land.

Nahum 3:4: Because of the multitude of the whoredoms of the wellfavoured harlot, the mistress of witchcrafts, that selleth nations through her whoredoms, and families through her witchcrafts.

Stanley Baldwin election campaign poster, 1929.

Phrases like “shameless harlot” and “political prostitution” used to be part of the lively language of politics but social change and an increasing intolerance of gendered terms of derision have rendered them almost extinct (the language of metaphorical violence is next for the chopping-block: guillotined, knifed, axed etc all on death row).  Harlot’s most notable political excursion came in 1931 when Stanley Baldwin (1867–1947; thrice UK prime-minister 1923-1937) was facing an orchestrated campaign against his leadership by the newspaper proprietors, Lords Rothermere (1868–1940) & Beaverbrook (1879-1964), the "press barons" then a potent force (Beaverbrook called them collectively the "press gang").  Before commercial television & radio, let alone the internet and social media, most information was disseminated in newspapers and their influence was considerable.  The press barons though, whatever their desires, couldn't be dictatorial, as Beaverbrook found when his long campaign for empire free-trade achieved little but they sometimes behaved as if they could at a whim move public opinion and often politicians were inclined to believe them.  Within the UK at the time, Rothermere & Beaverbrook weren’t exactly “by Murdoch out of Zuckerberg” but it’s hard to think of a better way of putting it.

Baldwin in 1931 found a good way of putting it.  His leadership of the Tory party challenged because he refused to support them in what was even then the chimera of empire free trade, he responded with a strident speech which appealed to the public’s mistrust of the press barons, using a phrase from his cousin Rudyard Kipling (1865-1936), ironically a friend of Beaverbrook.  Rothermere & Beaverbrook he denounced as wanting power without responsibility, “…the prerogative of the harlot throughout the ages.”  It was the most effective political speech in the UK until 1940, Baldwin flourishing and empire free trade doomed, although Beaverbrook would keep flogging the corpse for the rest of the 1930s.  Often underestimated, David Lloyd George (1863–1945; UK prime-minister 1916-1922) and Winston Churchill (1875-1965; UK prime-minister 1940-1945 & 1951-1955) would later acknowledge Baldwin as the most formidable political operator of the era.

The oratory of Lloyd-George and Churchill may be more regarded by history but Baldwin did have a way with words and less remembered lines from another of his famous speeches may have influenced climate change activist Greta Thunberg (b 2003).  Delivered in the House of Commons on 10 November 1932 in a debate on disarmament, he argued for an international agreement to restrict the development of the aircraft as a military weapon:

“I think it is well also for the man in the street to realize that there is no power on earth that can protect him from being bombed, whatever people may tell him.  The bomber will always get through…”.  “The only defense is in offence, which means that you have got to kill more women and children more quickly than the enemy if you want to save yourselves. I mention that so that people may realize what is waiting for them when the next war comes.”

Prescient about the way the unrestricted bombing of civilians would be the Second World War’s novel theatre, the phrase "the bomber will always get through" reverberated around the world, chancelleries and military high commands taking from it not the need for restrictions but the imperative to build bomber fleets, Baldwin not planting the seed of the idea but certainly reinforcing the prejudices and worst instincts of many.  That was the power of the phrase; it subsumed the purpose of the speech, the rest of which was essentially forgotten including the concluding sentences:

"I do not know how the youth of the world may feel, but it is no cheerful thought to the older men that having got that mastery of the air we are going to defile the earth from the air as we have defiled the soil for nearly all the years that mankind has been on it."

“This is a question for young men far more than it is for us…”  “Few of my colleagues around me here will see another great war…”  “At any rate, if it does come we shall be too old to be of use to anyone.  But what about the younger men, they who will have to fight out this bloody issue of warfare; it is really for them to decide. They are the majority on the earth. It touches them more closely. The instrument is in their hands.”

“If the conscience of the young men will ever come to feel that in regard to this one instrument the thing will be done.”  “As I say, the future is in their hands, but when the next war comes and European civilization is wiped out, as it will be and by no force more than by that force, then do not let them lay the blame on the old men, but let them remember that they principally and they alone are responsible for the terrors that have fallen on the earth.”

Hansard recorded Baldwin’s speech being greeted with “loud and prolonged cheers”, his enthusiasm for disarmament making him as popular as Neville Chamberlain (1869–1940; UK prime-minister 1937-1940) would briefly be in 1938 when he returned from Germany with a piece of paper bearing Hitler’s signature an a guarantee of “peace in our time”.  Soon, the views on both men would shift but historians today treat them more sympathetically.

The old and the young.

Greta Thunberg (b 2003) and Donald Trump (b 1946; US president 2017-2021), United Nations, New York, September 2019.  Ms Thunberg was attending a UN climate summit Mr Trump snubbed, going instead to a meeting on religious freedom.  Proving that God moves in mysterious ways, Mr Trump took a whole new interest in evangelical Christianity when he entered the contest for the 2016 presidential election.  Ms Thunberg seems to have noted the final paragraphs of Baldwin's speech and while convinced it’s quite right to “lay the blame on the old men” and their blah, blah, blah, which she thinks insufficient to lower carbon emissions, seems confident youth will prove more receptive to doing something about us defiling the earth.

Greta Thunberg, How Dare You? (Acid house mix).