Incivility from the UK Prime Minister’s Dispatch Box: A Comparative Study of PM Question Time Attacks, 2010–2020

Abstract

Despite the widespread notion that political incivility is on the rise, including the British Parliament, there is scarce research that systematically examines political incivility over time within and outside of the British context. As such, this chapter presents a rare longitudinal study of adversarial communication in the British Parliament. We explore the extent to which Prime Ministers (PMs) and Members of Parliament (MPs) used trait attacks and uncivil attacks during Prime Minister Questions (PMQs) in the period between 2010 and 2020. Our results show that despite the official ban on unparliamentary language, PMQs are filled with adversarial communication, including uncivil discourse. While we do not identify a linear increase in political incivility, we do find that the use of uncivil attacks fluctuates and becomes more frequent when elections draw closer. Furthermore, we uncover vast differences among PMs. Former Prime Minister Boris Johnson used most trait and uncivil attacks, while former Prime Minster Theresa May employed the fewest uncivil attacks of all prime ministers. The results contribute to academic research on political incivility and the broader debate on the communication style of political leaders, especially in British politics and more particularly, during PMQs.