Politics & Power Quote by Peter Hain

A politician asking to be judged on “my record” is really asking to control the frame: shift the conversation from history-as-indictment to performance-as-proof. Peter Hain’s line is built like a defensive maneuver dressed up as optimism. “Looking forward” sounds modern, managerial, almost therapeutic; “always look back” paints opponents as trapped in grievance and ritual. In Northern Ireland, where memory isn’t a hobby but a political instrument, that contrast lands with force.

The subtext is a bid to de-escalate accountability without openly refusing it. Hain concedes the terrain (“the tendency throughout politics in Northern Ireland”) while positioning himself as the grown-up in the room, the one trying to move the project along. The stumble and self-correction (“has been the - in a sense”) is telling: he’s negotiating a minefield in real time, acknowledging how easily a plea for amnesia can sound like disrespect for pain, victims, or hard-won narratives.

Context matters because Northern Irish politics has long revolved around contested timelines: who started what, who betrayed whom, what words were spoken before which bomb or concession. After the Good Friday Agreement era, “forward” became shorthand for stabilizing institutions and normalizing governance. Hain taps that post-conflict rhetoric, but he also reveals its limit: you can’t build legitimacy by demanding a clean slate. The line works because it’s both aspiration and self-protection, a reminder that in a place where the past is still politically active, “moving on” is never just a mood. It’s a strategy.