Bully beef

The promising political careers of Gaurav Sharma and Sam Uffindell hang in the balance as they learn a valuable lesson about public office.

- JANE CLIFTON

It's beginning to look as though the ideal person to sort out the unseemly dispute between the Labour caucus and Hamilton West MP Gaurav Sharma is a lexicographer. Central to this ruckus is less the "rampant bullying" that Sharma alleges infests politics than a rampant misunderstanding of what constitutes bullying.

The once-widely understood concept of coercive intimidation has meandered towards encompassing any situation in which someone doesn't feel comfortable. A boss or colleague points out a mistake: bullying. Someone loses an argument: the winners are bullies. Tell someone they can't do something, even if them's the rules: bully!

Bullying now has a fashionable partner: gaslighting. Loosely defined as making someone question their own reality, barely a day passes in which someone isn't in the headlines claiming to be a victim of it, as in: "They bullied me, then gaslit me to make it look like it was my fault."

This is not to say that the old definition of bullying doesn't occur, but like many other words - iconic, unique, awesome - its parameters have become confusingly elastic.

Is to feel bullied the same as having been bullied?

The Sharma affair adds the further dimension of the serpent eating its tail: when colleagues call you a bully, are they, in so doing, bullying you? He reckoned so.

The former GP's discomfort arose after caucus intervention in some difficulties he was having with staff. Staff relations is more art than science, but Parliament has developed protective guidelines after some nasty cases of mistreatment in its large and complex operation, including far-flung electorates, which is rife with power imbalances.

These guidelines are invigilated by party whips and, at more serious levels, the Parliamentary Service.