Politics & Power Quote by David Dimbleby

A veteran broadcaster’s version of a pressure valve, this line defends an idea that modern politics keeps trying to outlaw: the human past. Dimbleby frames the claim in the generous, collective "we" and the careful "allowed", as if privacy is no longer a default right but a permission granted by a suspicious crowd. That single verb does a lot of work. It concedes the new reality of permanent records, screenshots, and moral accounting, then pushes back against it without sounding like special pleading for the powerful.

The phrasing is deliberately plain - "mistakes", "things we should not" - avoiding lurid specifics. That vagueness is strategic. It invites readers to project their own youthful idiocies into the sentence, building empathy before any partisan defenses kick in. Dimbleby is also separating character from biography: you can be fit for public office without having lived a spotless life, because spotless lives are often just better curated ones.

The subtext is aimed at the scandal economy that treats politics like entertainment with a punishment arc. Opposition research, tabloid logic, and social media pile-ons all rely on collapsing time: a bad decision at 19 becomes proof of unchangeable essence at 49. Dimbleby, steeped in British political interviewing and the performance of "accountability", is arguing for a more adult standard - not no scrutiny, but scrutiny that distinguishes between hypocrisy and growth, harm and embarrassment, pattern and lapse. It’s a plea for proportion, delivered in the calm, institutional cadence of someone who’s watched public life become less forgiving and, not coincidentally, more fake.