Benedict Brogan writes in his clog, under the title: "David Cameron and his party are on a collision course over Europe".

However, one can only look pityingly upon his effluvia, which contains such gems as: "Conservative MPs rejoice in a leadership team of Mr Cameron, George Osborne and William Hague that is unequivocally sceptical about the EU".

But it cannot be that Brogan is that stupid. If this represented stupidity, the man would be unsafe to let out on his own. What we are dealing with is the bubble effect. Within the putrid environs of the Westminster bubble, inhabited by Brogan and his likes, such a statement looks eminently rational.

The problem with the bubble, though – as we have sometimes observed – is that it imparts on the denizens a sense of rectitude and invincibility. Thus, while by far the majority of Brogan's commenters disagree with him, and many profoundly so, this will not have the slightest impact.

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Not yet, we don't.

Journalists bear a huge responsibility for our current situation. Your analysis of the bubble is spot on. The BBC has it's own huge bubble. God I'd love to pop that one.

Let's hope that global warming bursts the bubble!

Seriously I think it is going pear shaped, it will be painful, it will all get nasty but it will implode like the USSR?

I live in hopes!

If the likes of Brogan would care to just take a few steps to "the other place" (they'll still be inside the bubble!) they would find a truer picture of what is actually Tory policy on Europe. It is voiced so blatantly in the Lords I wonder why no one seems to hear it?

http://www.theyworkforyou.com/lords/?id ... .7#g1633.3

Lord Liddle (Labour) [addressing Lord Howell of Guildford (Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office; Conservative)]:
"My Lords, the Minister assures us today, as he has throughout the passage of the European Union Bill in this House, that this is a pro-EU Government. Will he now persuade his Prime Minister to make for the first time a major speech explaining our interdependence with the European Union and the eurozone, and how the stability of our banks and our prospects for economic growth depend on it, instead of saying that we simply will not pay a penny? Is it not time that the Government started to fly the flag for our membership of the European Union in a real sense when they talk to the media in this country?"

Weasel Howell of Guildford in reply:
"I do not know where the noble Lord has been these past few days. My right honourable friend the Prime Minister needs no persuading and has made his position absolutely clear. As he pointed out in the other place the other day, the conclusion statement from the last European Council meeting included, at his behest, the crucial words:

'All necessary measures fully consistent with international standards must be rapidly taken to address any possible banking vulnerabilities brought to light by these stress tests',

and by the developments over the situation in Greece. My right honourable friend is perfectly well aware of the vital importance of maintaining economic stability in Europe and the recovery of the economies in difficulties. No persuasion is required."

"In older times, they were dragged out and killed, but we don't do things that way any more."

More's the bloody pity.

To read the article you can see that Brogan has been sussed from the outset. In short he's been briefed by No10 or No11 Downing Street.
Everybody on the blog can see right through it. It is perhaps just as well that Brogan doesn't read the comments to his own blog unlike DH and NT.

All that talk on Star Trek about parallel worlds in dimensions other than our own - Just a useful story-telling technique? Judging by the world of Westminster, there is indeed a parallel world inhabited by the likes of Brogan: the only trouble is that access seems to be one-way only, i.e. they can tell us what is real in their world, but our messages never get through to them.

Yes, you're right ... it is akin to a one-way mirror. But the phenomenon is actually as I described it. The denizens of the bubble believe they are right, with a god-given authority that precludes any doubt. If, from outside the bubble, you disagree, then you are wrong. It is not that they don't hear us - just that anything we say is wrong and can therefore be ignored. They are right, which means we must be wrong ... simples.

It really is quite hard to get this through to people - until you've experienced it, it seems surreal. But the bubblers are absolutely imbued with their sense of rectitude. They cannot conceive that they are wrong - it is not something that they are capable of absorbing. Thus, it does not matter what you say, how logically or well you put your case - if you disagree with them you MUST be wrong ... end of.

It sounds like you are describing a cult. I said cult. Certainly something bordering on religion - the State in all its magnificence as a religion? The EU? Or perhaps a more vague treating of civil service wibble as commandments from upon high to be enacted and obeyed by the little people.

Looking at it like that i'm not at all certain there is a lasting answer to the bubble phenomenon that doesn't involve popping it. And when I say that I mean the entire system or representation. Anything that retains a major degree of majority rule and a big state will return to this madness in time.

I'm not disagreeing (though I perhaps poorly expressed my level of wonder and disgust). I also dont think that this 'bubble' mentality is unique to Westminster (though it is probably uniquely dangerous) - e.g. have you ever tried to explain some of the uncertainties about the AGW hypothesis to a true-believer: it doesnt now take long for me to realise the futility of such attempts as their eyes glaze over and the metaphorical fingers are stuck in metaphorical ears. For quite a while, I have felt that the real sadness over humanity is the widespread refusal/inability to submit cherished beliefs to rational investigation - denial of the one potential that should separate man from the other creatures!

Possibly, society is a whole set (raft?) of bubbles ... as in the BBC bubble. The military cetainly has its own bubble, in which it quite naturally resides ... this perhaps better explains the apparently unique phenomenon of egregious military incompetence described by Dixon.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Psychology-Mili ... 626&sr=1-1

I wonder, actually, whether it is the cult of the specialist or the single interest group ... once you get together enough people with a single thing in common, they build a bubble round themselves ... hence medical profession and many others besides.

..while I have come to the belief that it is only our ability to deceive ourselves and justify our actions and opinions in the face of evidence which separates us from less sophisicated animals. Therefore those who do it best rise to the top in our society. Or any part of it. Mosquito's bubble theory.

If that is the case, and it could well be, then evolution has taken a wrong turning somwhere ... or perhaps the design wasn't that intelligent. God is a corporate being, and she is having a laugh.

Evolution can't go wrong. Survival of the fittest is not about going to the gym, it is about being fit for purpose in the environment you are actually in, so you get to reproduce. Argue that they, the bubbleers, don't fit that description? Of course they do, they are manipulating the environment, and other supposedly more intelligent decent creatures, to their own advantage. We need to create an environment where their traits are a disadvantage, and lead to an early demise before they can reproduce. Suggestions?

They will self-destruct soon enough ... bubbles are inherently fragile and burst sooner or later. This only gives them a short-term advantage. But there are long-term penalties for cutting yourself off from the rest of humanity.

I now wonder, though, how much of this traffic farming ... put up something absurdly controversial and watch the readers flock to your site to comment. Maximise the hits, maximise the advertising income ... simples.

Bubbles do indeed burst. But this is not a housing bubble or the south sea bubble, this is only a metaphor for a bubble which we might have called a bunker. Bunkers need to be destroyed or starved out.