Leadership Quote by Francis Maude

"For the most part" does a lot of political heavy lifting here. It sounds like a warm endorsement of the base, but it’s really a preemptive strike: a way to concede that some of your grassroots are neither nice nor tolerant without ever naming them, confronting them, or taking responsibility for what they’re doing under your banner. The phrase quietly draws a perimeter around the speaker’s moral comfort zone: most are fine; the problem is a manageable minority; don’t make me talk about specifics.

As a line from a politician, it’s calibrated to solve two problems at once. First, it reassures mainstream voters and media gatekeepers who may be alarmed by reports of activists behaving badly - bigotry, harassment, conspiracy-mongering, whatever the scandal of the week is. Second, it avoids alienating the activist infrastructure that turns out votes and volunteers. Maude offers praise with an escape hatch.

The subtext is less "our members are good" than "stop treating us like we’re responsible for the loud ones". It’s brand management disguised as character testimony. The adjectives are telling: "serious" signals legitimacy, "nice" signals civility, "tolerant" signals distance from the ugly side of populist politics. Put together, they form a PR disinfectant: a claim that the movement’s energy can be separated from its excesses.

It works because it’s deniable and soothing. Nobody is accused, everybody is flattered, and the uncomfortable story - who counts as not nice, and what the leadership will do about them - is safely left offstage.