Humour and Insult in the House of Commons: The Case of Palmerston and Disraeli.

Formal prohibitions on ‘personalities’ notwithstanding, a constant of parliamentary life is that members regularly insult one another. Within the conventions of 19th-century public decorum, humour served as an effective means for some politicians to deliver personal insults to their opponents. This article examines the nature of the personal attacks made by Disraeli and Palmerston on each other between 1837 and 1865, and describes how their styles of humorous insult were different but equally effective. Analysis of their political contest sheds new light on the careers of the two men, while also providing the basis for broader considerations about the changing nature and functions of humour in political discourse from the 18th to the 20th centuries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]