Earlier this week, we contemplated the immortal phrase “Operation Save Big Dog”. This is the name of British Prime Minster Boris Johnson’s plan to save himself in the midst of a series of scandals that could well cost him his leadership. Big Dog is a name he presumably approved of. It got us thinking about political nicknames, and how they come about.
Scott Morrison
Lech Blaine’s Quarterly Essay Good Blokes describes the adoption of the “ScoMo” persona, and its attendant love of rugby league, as an act of “focus-grouped identity theft” from lifelong Rabbitohs fan Anthony “Albo” Albanese.
The first instance we can find of Morrison’s favoured nickname turning up in print is the AFR in 2014. The article starts:
There’s one guy in every office who annoys his colleagues, tries to take their jobs, and builds his own little empire.
But enough about your problems. Immigration Minister Scott Morrison, ScoMo to his friends, is misunderstood.
It doesn’t start taking off until 2015, during which there are 78 references to ScoMo, according to Factiva. In 2016 there are 194 references and by 2017, 308.
Of course, Morrison doesn’t have it all his own way. The far less chummy “Scotty from marketing” came about surprisingly early, the day Morrison became PM. Satirical site The Betoota Advocate saying Morrison was “also commonly referred to as Big Scotty From Marketing” was little more than an aside, but something about it stuck, getting to something fundamental about how people view our prime minister. It’s now every bit as ubiquitous as ScoMo.
Sam Dastyari
Australian National University historian Frank Bongiorno in his review of former ALP senator Sam Dastyari’s book offered the following insight into his nickname:
All the same, there is a distractedness about this book, as there seems to be about Dastyari’s political style in general; a habit of skating over shiny surfaces and moving on to the next set of colourful lights before the last lot have really been taken in, by him or anyone else. His nickname, “Dasher”, is strikingly apt, as Australian nicknames so often are.
Joe Biden
Of course, so far we’ve largely been dealing with the nicknames that politicians almost certainly came up with themselves, or at the very least wanted to be called. Those applied by others are rarely as affectionate. So while it’s not exactly a nickname, the phrase “Let’s Go, Brandon” deserves some attention. Late last year, NBC reporter Kelli Stavast misheard (perhaps wilfully) a chant of “Fuck Joe Biden” by spectators at Talladega Superspeedway as “Let’s go, Brandon” after driver Brandon Brown had won. It’s been adopted by Republican politicians such as Ted Cruz, Bill Posey and Jeff Duncan and has become a staple of T-shirts, masks and sports banners. It’s a perfect little simulacrum for the Trump-era political right: a coded in-joke, nastier that it’s willing to make explicit.
Julia Gillard
Women, you might be shocked to hear, don’t always come off great in this list. While blokes are occasionally able to get a jocular, matey nickname, our first female PM got JuLiar. It came in the great ugliness that followed the imposition of a carbon price and centred, as so much of the vitriol thrown at Gillard was, on Alan Jones. Jones applied the epithet to the then PM’s face during a typically edifying interview.
Angela Merkel
And even when women get a basically affectionate nickname, it’s still decidedly gendered. So departing German chancellor Angela Merkel over the course of her 16 years in charge went from “das Mädchen” (the girl), when she was thought of as inexperienced, to “Mutti” (mother). Mutti started as a patronising slam from her opponents, but came to be adopted by her supporters, explained in decidedly icky terms by a German pundit in 2013: “Your mummy is always there for you. She doesn’t care what she looks like but you can rely on her. Sometimes she might tell you to clean up your room but she’s always there for you.”
Margaret Thatcher
The origin of Margaret Thatcher’s long-term nickname, “The Iron Lady”, is a similar act of repurposing. Back in 1976, when Thatcher was still an up-and-coming conservative, Soviet propaganda outlet Krasnaya Zvezda ran a piece about her under the headline “Iron Lady Wields Threats”. It was apparently a slow news day, and the Reuters bureau ran a write-up of the article. In turn, British press took it up.
A week later, Thatcher’s speech in Southgate began, to applause and laughter, “I stand before you tonight in my Red Star evening gown, my face softly made up and my fair hair gently waved, the Iron Lady of the Western world.” She added, as though cuing the dark strings before the end credits in a supervillain origin story, “Yes, I am an iron lady.”
Mark McGowan
As ever, Western Australia provides the exception. We are pretty confident than “State Daddy” was not emperor Premier Mark McGowan’s idea. Someone got a tattoo with the sobriquet, which evolved into a limited edition cereal. Following last night’s announcement, we look forward to the rejoicing that will clog Perth CDB (which is pretty empty by 2pm usually) when McGowan announces lifetime premiership terms, along with a glorious plan to crowbar the state off the rest of the country and drift off towards South Africa.
What are your favourite political nicknames? Let us know your thoughts by writing to letters@crikey.com.au. Please include your full name if you would like to be considered for publication in Crikey’s Your Say column. We reserve the right to edit for length and clarity.
