"F**k." What a word. It’s the Doctor Who Sonic Screwdriver of language, capable of any feat. Noun, verb (both transitive and intransitive), adjective, linguistic intensifier. You can put it in the middle of words, or at the end as a suffix; use it as blunt interjection; or wield it expertly as a conjunction, adverb, or even pronoun.

If these islands have anything to be proud of, it’s globalising "f**k’" adding a little pepper and salt to the many languages of the planet, because travel where you may in this wild world of ours, from Antartica to the Amazon, everyone knows a well-placed "f**k" when they hear it.

The words "well-placed" are important. Use "f**k" correctly and you’ll bring the house down, have them laughing in the aisles; use it unwisely and you’ll still, even in the 2020s - an era when little has meaning - get the sack, have your collar felt, or be banished to social Siberia. Context is everything: "f**k" works fine in the pub; not so great, though, when you’re teaching six-year-olds. There’s no problem at all with "f**k" on a show like The Sopranos, but maybe not Homes Under the Hammer.

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My novels have plenty of "f**ks" in them, but not my journalism (this piece, clearly, aside, and even then you’ll note the Milky Way of asterisks starring out all those naughty "f**ks’" as we collectively pretend readers really don’t know what the word is, or are just too la-dee-dah to deal with the horror of confronting four letters we all use regularly).

I didn’t swear in front of my children. My prissy side emerges when parents swear around their kids. It’s just tawdry, bad parenting, like sharing a fag with your 13-year-old. But then something strange happened after my kids hit 18, left home and headed to university.

Somewhere down the line, maybe a year later, we realised we were all adults and soon the odd "f**k" slipped into conversation. At first it felt wrong, a wee bit shocking. Now they’re mid-20s, we go to the pub together, and we just talk like grown-ups. Guess what? Grown-ups often swear. What was unthinkable seven years ago, has, because of context, become unremarkable.

Is it good to swear all the time? No. Not if you use swearing to fill in the blanks of language you clearly lack. But, conversely, a well-placed "f**k" can be the mark of mental and linguistic dexterity; a joy, frankly, to behold.

When it comes to politicians swearing, however, I’m of the "I could actually do without that" school of thought. I’m not much of a believer in role models, but politicians have undue and often detrimental influence on the world. So, I can do without leaders dropping F-bombs all over each other like foul-mouthed B-52s. I’m not going to call the UN or anything, but it would be best if they just don’t.

Unfortunate as it may be, the oddballs and obsessives we elect set the tone for how we behave. Comedians, actors, writers and other public purveyors of "f**k" don’t. America wasn’t coarsened by Saturday Night Live, it was coarsened by Donald Trump.

I hate to break it to politicians, but most of us expect them to be better than us. I dare to dream the impossible. Evidently, that sounds comically naive these days, but it remains sadly, optimistically, true. We want debate, not Billy Connolly routines (though he’d probably make a better politician than most).

Humza Yousaf and Lee Anderson were both throwing "f**k" around this week. However, much as all politicians would be best suited keeping it clean - policy not punchlines, por favor - there’s a world of difference to the context in which both politicians used the word.

Let’s check "30p Lee" first: the Tory deputy chairman who thinks humans can survive on six shillings worth of food per day. Anderson, a Monty Python character gone wrong, says refugees who don’t want housed, on what critics have called "death-trap prison ships", should “f**k off back to France”.

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In Culture War terms, it’s a triple-hit: racist dog whistle, kick in the face for immigrants, and middle finger to those damn Frenchies.

Humza Yousaf said bigots who told folk they “don’t belong here” due to their race, gender or background should hear these words: “F**k you.” Yousaf has clearly been on the pointy end of racist hate for much of his life. His emotional response is entirely understandable.

Anderson punches down, giving the weak a good thump; Yousaf punches up, having a go at the many comfortable bigots - snug in their armchairs, sipping tea in front of their keyboards while they spurt hate into the ether - who people poor old Britain today.

If you don’t believe Yousaf gets abused, just go online and see what is said about him in screed after hate-filled screed. It’ll make you sick.

There’s something deeper going on here, though. Anderson and Yousaf both made their comments at roughly the same time. It was almost as if they were talking to each other; almost as if they were engaging in the kind of ugly conversation that’s going on all over this benighted country at the moment.

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Some of us in Britain are embracing the hate, drinking it deep, delighting in a spot of cruelty for those weaker than us; others are taking on the hate-mongers and bigots, telling them "f**k you, you’re not what this country is about".

That’s what happens when the Westminster Government starts diversionary culture wars; that’s what happens when the Westminster Government impoverishes the nation, turning the weak against the even weaker.

The British population has been terrorised by financial chaos - caused by Conservatives - and now some are falling for the monstrous Tory trick of blaming immigrants for their stupid and malevolent misrule.

So, here’s the deal: two men in powerful positions said "f**k". It would be better if neither swore. But there’s a gaping moral gulf in meaning to what they both said. One, for all his faults, is on the side of the angels; the other, comprised of nothing but faults, has decided to reign in hell.