Etonian Rudeness

Complaing about rudeness to Dennis Skinner is a bit like complaining about someone being too ruthless when dealing with the KGB. If you want to get protective pick someone who needs protecting, not someone everyone else needs protection from. Skinner has routinely dished out worse, and will no doubt do so again at the next available opportunity.

1) It's actually Dennis, not Denis.

2) Dennis Skinner is routinely unpleasantly rude. He only gets away with this embarrassing and demeaning behaviour due to his age. Surely his constituents deserve better than their MP making drug references every time the Chancellor speaks.

3) Seeing as MPs daily describe their opponents as telling untruths or being incompetent then I fail to see how describing an MP as having out-dated ideas is particularly rude.

I don't know whether to laugh or cry at the completely pointless and political nature of this article.

Firstly Dennis Skinner is more than able to stand up for himself - he is often rude - his question was pathetic (in my opinion) and in fact the behaviour in the HofC during PMQ's often leaves a lot to be desired (i'm thinking Ed Balls but he is not alone).

'Manners' is a funny word with many meanings these days, I haven't met the Prime Minister or Tony Blair but it could be said that leading this Country into an unpopular and possibly illegal war leaving thousands dead was indeed very bad manners indeed.

Writing an article basing manners being taught in School on the fact that children coughed when you made a speech is frankly baffling. Presumably you weren't expecting many votes from the boys in the future? Further, presumably if they were coughing not because they were ill they were at best being childish and that sort of behaviour is universal in ALL schools.

This though does reveal a more thought provoking area. I have two children and given the problematic nature of my educational experience I have decided (with my husband) to educate them privately. I am extremely happy with their School, their standards of education, sport and the manners they are taught. However I have a very left wing friend who is a teacher who now refuses to talk to me all because of this. This constant assault by the left is ridiculous. Aren't you better off working with Eton and persuading them to help other Schools in your constituency achieve similar results rather than alienating them for your own potential political advantage?

Salmondnet and Nick have it absolutely right: Skinner is a deeply unpleasant individual with a huge chip on both shoulders. His escalation to national treasure status is a symbol of reverse ageism; it's simply because he's old that people will defer somewhat.

Glad I don't inhabit Bolsover.

Never mind Dennis Skinner or Eton, at the end of the day Cameron's dinosaur comments were far from Prime Ministerial. Just because it's Dennis Skinner doesn't mean you have to stoop to his level?

Frankly. Who cares?

Given the behaviour of the two prior PMs, - lies about war + various other items and obvious feathering of nests and large scale overspending - I could not give a whotsit about the occasional rudeness to an MP..

(Most of them - Dennis Skinner excluded - deserve to be in jail and don't deserve any sympathy or support.)

I'd be happy with a competent and not too arrogant Government and a competent Opposition . Looks like I'll have to wait then.

The Prime Minister's comment was entirely unnecessary as unrelated to the question. Tough debating is fine, but when it serves no purpose in the debate it is simply bad manners. The fact the object of the remark may not be sympathetic is irrelevant - the bad manners are the responsibility of Mr Cameron, not his target.

This is hardly political, even the Torygraph's political sketch writer picked up on this.

Now now Fiona. I seem to remember you coming to my school in Slough in Autumn 97 and gave me a particularly rude riposte when I dared to ask a question about the Bernie Ecclestone affair.

Rather than posturing on here, how about you get on with sorting out the Slough Labour Party, who in their infinite wisdom have managed to get the Leader of Slough Borough Council deselected from his ward!

What a ridiculous article this is.

Dennis Skinner is what he is. Some people like him, some loathe him, some just consider him a figure of fun. Whichever way, he has made a career out of being rude and outspoken, so I don't think he either needs this kind of defence nor would even want it to be fair.

This is clearly just another opportunity to mention the fact that Cameron went to Eton. Well, how is that even relevant? Is it okay for Skinner to be rude because he didn't go to Eton? Would every other school - public, private or state - in the country have behaved differently during a visit where an MP delivers an uninspiring speech?

The point about this not being Prime Ministerial doesn't quite work either. Was Blair ALWAYS polite in response to opposition questions? Did Brown - who let's remember was quite happy to call his own supporters 'bigots' when he thought noone was listening - never say anything that might be considered 'rude' about Tories?

When I lived in Italy I visited a shop in a village on Lake Garda. The shop Keeper told us that when a party of Etonians had been there on a school trip, they had formed an orderly queue and passed stolen bottles of wine back down the queue hidden under their jackets.

Inviting a Labour MP to speak to such an audience is, as Sir Humphrey might put it, a "courageous" move, presumably somewhere between inviting a Japanese whaler to address a Greenpeace meeting and inviting a representative of the SS to address a synagogue, given the party's hostility towards the institution itself and the financial harm inflicted on each one of them to go on to university (the bipartisan nature of the latter and the fact the coalition made that worse doesn't really excuse it, either).

My own school had a former Labour Minister speak once, being an alumnus himself; I don't recall any coughing, though when he mentioned having achieved something no other Labour Minister has before or since, then paused for effect, "literacy" was probably the kindest suggestion.

As for politeness in the Commons, it's interesting to note this author's other article was about her own rudeness in that same venue!

But Mr Skinner IS a dinosaur!

And he could give lessons on rudeness.

That's News is correct...and I would gladly take them