Thread by @atatimelikethis

Q "What's a Westminster Bubble Issue?"
A "Something immoral that doesn't make it outside of Westminster, or no one remembers."

Q "Eh? You mean this isn't the first time?"

A "From one perspective you could say they've always done it. But arguably, it's been worse since 2016."

Q. "and what do YOU mean by THAT?" In what seemed like slow motion, I watched a tiny globule of spittle escape her lip, roughly a third of the way along, but no clear source.
I paused, breathed in, in that way when you just catch your breath.
Zen, to her perpetual alert to this

topic and the burden of guilt she never admitted. "I didn't mean that", she looked already a little less defensive, she had also seen the saliva rain drop and was embarrassed. "They'll probably try to suggest that's it but it isn't. For them it's a good way to cover the cracks.

But this time it's gone too far." Even that got a warning look. Echoes of arguments about THE EVENT transformed out of all recognition from the original. I'd learned, painfully slowly, that most of the guilt had its origin in the cocoon in which it had festered, not the start.

I tried to be flippant. "Most of time the stuff they do, it's middle of the night news channel stuff. People might care, if they knew, they might protest but they're not even watching. Or they don't understand, or haven't bothered to check." Another flash there. That one I'd been

over in my head so often that I was sure I hadn't ever accused her of not checking the facts.

It made no difference. So many others had made this point; it was a meme. I'd become a target for her GBA - Guilt By Association. "Give me some historical examples," she said.
We both

knew that was a white flag; it meant from before THE EVENT so no one needed feel guilt. "Oh I, hmm, Ok Dad. The thing he's vexed about is cancer or any life-threatening illness for that matter. All his life, if something bad like that happened your employer would see you

right. To the end, including often the funeral. It was, it was," I sighed, what was it? What did we even use as a word these days? "It was considered honourable. No company would throw you to the wolves with a terminal illness. But these days, they write into your contract that

if you get sick; stuff you, bad luck, spend the rest of your useless life on benefits." She looked at me quizzically, not quite saying I was wrong, but unsure I wasn't about to burst out with a, "succckkeerr, gotcha". If only I were. " What bugs Dad more than anything isn't that

they changed things so that could happen. He's got all obsessed because he didn't notice. No one reported it, and no one defended its importance. And then, of course, having turned honourable to dishonourable, they started attacking the critical ill on benefits who were there

only because they had put them there, where they never should have been. He calls it the shit coveyer. Take a cost out of business, your mates make more money, shift that cost to the state, say you can't afford it, even though you transferred it, then crush the bastard and say

he's a scrounger despite the fact you know he's stage 3, and you put him there."

"But that's sick, " she blurted out, "they can't do that, it's an outrage".

My lips curled into our mock GiveMeACuddle face, " Sorry babes, that's the unreported bit. The Westminster Bubble."

"For every example like this weekend that people wake up to there are maybe 100, that never make it out if the bubble. It's 20% control, for 80% corrupt...t" I trailed off, how could I have been so stupid? I'd just got so used to representing things in those terms. Politics was a

mix of people who wanted to do good, and the rest. Unfortunately, the first group was an insignificant minority. I'd built a long "rest" classification for her since it started: Reversers, Omitters, Fact Generators, Stalking Horses, Argument Shifters.
And the Short Pinters.

Short Pinters had started out as "The Lipstick on a Pig Brigade". That worked for me, but she was so much more literal. She'd never buy a pig, so why would adding lipstick make it more attractive? So that turned into watered down wine, which then evolved into Short Pinters -

The guys who sell you something that looks tasty, has a little bit of the original product you like for credibility, but otherwise was all a con.
She could see that, a lot of nods, so I started applying it to THE EVENT. For some that pint was obviously watered down, beware any

deal too good to be true.
For others that pint looked tasty, ready to drink. I explained over years that maybe 20% was thirst qenching, but you couldn't separate it from the 80%. But the worst thing was you didn't get to drink it until you'd rejected everything else. THE EVENT,

I'd argued was selling half of us nothing, selling the other half 20% beer, but pursuading them it was 100% the real thing. Great, I'd just stumbled into a pareto argument in a different place. "Are you deliberately trying to wind me up", she snarled. "Another fucking discussion

that starts out nice but is just an excuse for you to say I can't make my own choices? It's clearly not a Westminster, it's a patronising intellectual wank bubble, where you get to argue with posh friends about how smart you are compared to us chumps." I watched her ignite as

much flame as human, and wondered again how THE EVENT had this sort of hold. For a moment there she'd seen the issue, the problem, any democracy faces if it makes decisions in darkness and without scrutiny. She wanted that no more than me.

But THE EVENT was a flood, all I had to

do was brush pasts the dykes; the tiniest touch created a breach and the resulting tsunami of emotion swept everything else away, no matter how unrelated, sparing no one.

She hadn't always been like that, except maybe in defence of family or friends. Something about THE EVENT

tapped into that primary centre brain reaction, instant, angry, defensive, no evaluation. The sort of emotions our species had needed to survive wild animals.

Tell a mum her kids are ugly you'll face that reaction, not, "Oh really? How interesting, maybe from a certain point

of view."

A protective mum was in front of me, clutching her kids, ready to spear at the even an impression of sabre tooth, and I'd opened my cat mouth and shower them all.

There was only one way, over-apology. I sat down, made myself smaller, "I'm sorry, that was stupid, I

should never have tried to create that connection, it's not relevant. The point I should have made was there's a lot going on in there that I wish we had a chance to look at more, because as Dad pointed out, some of it isn't so good or so clearly talked about."
This was the crazy

power of the event. I'd learned that denying any intended connection and apologising didn't stop the fight, it escalated it. Bizarely, crazily with my lover, I had to pretend the connection was intended, and then apologise for trying to get it past her. Such was the strength of