Leadership Quote by Francis Maude

A sentence like this is designed to sound like statesmanship while keeping every door locked from the inside. Francis Maude’s “if we can work with people in other parties” borrows the warm glow of bipartisanship, but it’s engineered with escape hatches: “if we can” lowers expectations, and “to get the right answer” quietly claims ownership of what “right” even is. Cooperation is offered, but only on terms already defined as correct.

The cleverness is in the pivot from process to patriotism. “Other parties” frames compromise as outreach across tribal lines, yet “for the country” implies that disagreement is less an alternate policy view than a failure of national duty. That’s an old parliamentary maneuver: wrap your preferred outcome in the flag, then invite rivals to join you - on your platform.

Maude, a Conservative cabinet figure associated with public sector reform and austerity-era governance, is speaking from a political moment when “cross-party” talk is both demanded by public fatigue and distrusted as a cover for pre-cooked decisions. The subtext is managerial: politics as problem-solving, not contestation. You can almost hear the implied corollary: if the other parties refuse, they’re the ones putting politics before country.

It works because it flatters the listener with a fantasy of rational consensus while inoculating the speaker against charges of partisanship. It’s not a promise to compromise; it’s a promise to be seen trying, while reserving the right to declare the compromise unnecessary.