Political discourse in Pakistan still has a long way to go when politicianshaven’t learned to debate or speak in a courteous manner. Whether in the parliament, talk shows, press conferences or public events, political parties have failed on multiple fronts when engaging with each other or in some cases the public. One can provide numerous examples of such cases ranging from PTI’s own ministers, parliamentarians and advisors to the lack of ethical behaviour shown by the rank and file of the PML-N and PPP. Who could forget the on and off screen foul behaviour by SACM Firdous Ashiq Awan who is notorious in this regard. What about Railways Minister Azam Swati’s bizarre take that he would resign if Ghokti train tragedy’s victims could return from the afterlife. Then we have Aviation Minister Ghulam Sarwar Khan’s irresponsible statement on PIA last June that cost some losses of 8 billion rupees. Just recently, the parliament became a fish market when lawmakers threw slurs and name-called each other during the budget session. As for PML-N, a similar pattern is witnessed when its leaders and parliamentarians abuse those belonging to PTI especially the likes of Javed Latif, Maryam Aurangzeb and Rana Sanaullah whose language is very much below the belt. While the PPP isn’t known for such vile takes, some of its leaders did make irresponsible statements in the not too distant past when former PM Yousaf Raza Gillani’sobjectionable take on Pakistani public in an interview with CNN’s Becky Anderson in London went viral back in 2012. Similarly, former Defence Production Minister Abdul Qayyum Jatoi publicly endorsed corruption and considered it a ‘right’. There is a huge gap to fill and sadly, social media has also played a negative role in amplifying negativity on behalf of political parties who run troll farms. PML-N may accuse PTI of this but the fact remains that it has vast social media presence of its own with a systematic abusive behaviour directed towards PTI’s core leadership. Notably, PML-N Vice President Maryam Nawaz follows a large number of these abusive twitter accounts. The point is that political parties need to have an internal ethics board which can oversee the behaviour of politicians with fines and necessary disciplinary action on repeated violations even if someone is a top-tier leader. The irony is that leaders of political parties gauge the performance of their TV spokespersons on their strength for the verbal brawl as who is more ill mannered and can be more abusive. The art of debate and logic has been overshadowed with below the belt point scoring. Create noise, don’t listen, interrupt and be rude are the rules of the game in talk shows.Spokespersons are applauded by their leaders on their aggressive and rude conduct. But will they all learn? That’s the bigger question which requires some kind of ananswer or solution. *