Leadership Quote by Paddy Ashdown

Expectation is doing most of the political work here. Ashdown’s line - “I was told there would be riots in the streets, but there were no riots” - is a compact demolition of the fear-script that often accompanies big institutional change. As a British politician who lived through high-stakes debates about reform, sovereignty, and settlement politics, he’s pointing at a familiar maneuver: warn of chaos, demand caution, and then claim credit if disaster fails to arrive.

The sentence is built like a joke with a stingy punchline. The first clause invokes unnamed prophets (“I was told”), letting Ashdown keep his hands clean while summoning the chorus of alarmists. The second clause lands with flat, almost bored empiricism: nothing happened. That deadpan is the subtext. He’s not merely reporting calm; he’s mocking the melodrama that insisted public order was one bad decision away from collapse.

What makes it work is how it reframes legitimacy. “Riots in the streets” isn’t just violence; it’s a claim about “the people” expressing righteous fury. By noting their absence, Ashdown suggests either the public wasn’t as enraged as elites claimed, or that institutions and citizens were sturdier than the panic merchants assumed. It’s a shot at political theater: if your argument requires imaginary mobs, maybe your argument doesn’t have legs.

At the same time, the line carries a sly warning. Today there were no riots; tomorrow’s complacency could be a different kind of danger. Calm can vindicate change, but it can also expose how cynically fear gets sold.