Leadership Quote by Patricia Hewitt

“Certainly we know from our own experience” is doing the heavy lifting here: a soft, collective preface that turns a personal wound into institutional wisdom. Patricia Hewitt isn’t just acknowledging the sting of defeat; she’s building a permission structure for someone else to feel wronged without sounding petulant. The line frames losing not as a verdict, but as a psychological event - disorienting precisely because expectations were set elsewhere.

That “perhaps” is the tell. It’s a politician’s throttle, a way to gesture at the obvious (polls, pundits, donor confidence, party chatter) while preserving plausible deniability. If you name the expectation too plainly, you risk validating the narrative that the election was “supposed” to go differently - a dangerous premise in democratic life, where legitimacy depends on treating outcomes as binding, not surprising. Hewitt threads the needle: she normalizes disbelief while stopping short of endorsing grievance.

The subtext is also intra-party. “We know” signals comradeship - a reminder that political careers are lived in cycles of ascent and humiliation, and that today’s loser may be tomorrow’s asset. It’s consolation with a strategic edge: absorb the loss, don’t burn the house down.

Contextually, this kind of remark often appears when a defeated camp is flirting with denial or recrimination. Hewitt’s intent is containment: acknowledge the emotional shock so it doesn’t metastasize into a legitimacy crisis, while gently steering the conversation back to resilience and procedure.