“When the general atmosphere is bad, language must suffer,” wrote George Orwell in his famous essay, Politics and the English Language, just after the second world war. Things are bad, and our language is getting worse.

The Liberal Democrats have adopted the slogan “Bollocks to Brexit” in their campaign for the on again, never really off European elections on 23 May. This has certainly won them some attention. Critics were quick to denounce what they saw as a sorry decline in standards of taste and decency. James Forsyth, political editor of the Spectator – and a columnist for the Sun – tweeted that the slogan “does nothing for civility and makes the public square a less pleasant place”. He acknowledged there was a chance he might sound a bit prim in offering this view.

A YouGov survey in 2010 found that 67% felt “bollocks” should only be used after the 9 o’clock watershed

How do we all feel about “bollocks”? It’s not the rudest word you can imagine using. For the purposes of sloganising in the run-up to polling day, the alliteration with the b of Brexit is useful. It’s also an old, familiar and decidedly British term. (For foreigners and non-native English speakers, the Bloomberg news service helpfully reported: “Perhaps an unfamiliar term outside of the UK, ‘bollocks’ is a slang word meaning both rubbish and testicles.”)

But does this usage constitute an unnecessary and perhaps even counter-productive coarsening of public debate? Not every Lib Dem candidate will have to use the phrase. Other election literature will carry the less charged wording, “Stop Brexit”, for those activists worried about causing offence. Broadcasters will have to exercise judgment in how freely to report the slogan. A YouGov survey in 2010 found that 67% felt “bollocks” should only be used after the 9 o’clock watershed. Only one in five thought it should be allowed at any time; 12% thought it should be banned.

The colourful language has at least marked out the Lib Dems as a party with a bit of fight in them. On the back of encouraging results in the local elections, Vince Cable’s team has recovered some energy and momentum. The contrast with the less distinct and at times rather confused-sounding interventions of Change UK – who also want to stop Brexit, but without swearing – is stark. In addition, the slogan has the virtue of sincerity. The Lib Dems are unequivocal remainers who want to stop Brexit from happening. They think it’s all bollocks and are prepared to say so.

Direct language can be effective. Matt Kelly, editor of the New European newspaper, tells me that since offering new subscribers a free “Bollocks to Brexit” mug if they sign up to receive the paper, subscription rates have trebled.

Words are among the first casualties at election time. A leaflet from the Brexit party came through my door this week, which declared that they want to put “the principles of Trust, Honesty and Integrity at the heart of our democracy”. These words stood next to a photograph of Nigel Farage. What a load of bollocks.

Few of us want our political debate to slip into rampant obscenity. Shadow foreign secretary Emily Thornberry has managed to demurely mouth the word “bollocks” both in the chamber of the House of Commons and on TV – an acknowledgement that if swear words are to retain their power we should handle them with care and ration their use. It would be an ironic success for Trumpian demagogues if coarseness were to become normal. Politicians should be helping to restore our wounded civilisation, not taking a hammer to it.

But perhaps this blast of slightly off-colour humour will improve matters. Largely because of Brexit, politics has become boring, stale and repetitive. We need something to wake us all up. The flatness of so much political language – the safety first, pre-cooked soundbites – doesn’t help. This is not an entirely new phenomenon, however. In his essay, Orwell bemoaned how uninspiring so many political speakers could be. “When one watches some tired hack on the platform mechanically repeating the familiar phrases,” he wrote, “one often has a curious feeling that one is not watching a live human being but some kind of dummy … A speaker who uses that kind of phraseology has gone some distance toward turning himself into a machine.”

Rage against the machine. Bollocks to Brexit.

• Stefan Stern is co-author of Myths of Management