This has similarities to Patrick Mercer giving insight to real Army life. Further proof that politicians can now only say that which is deemed socially and politically acceptable rather than what they really know or believe. How can we respect any section of society, and the people that form it, when they are only allowed say, not what they think, but what they believe is what we want to hear?
Powell was right when he made that speech and very little has changed in the meantime. The underlying problem was never tackled but simply papered over by legislation and behavioural modification by threat of punishment. That man saw the nation's boiler pressure rising and drew attention to it. We did nothing other than shout him down and clamp down the safety valves to prove he was wrong. Well, we can clamp down the safety valves as tight as we want but when the boiler eventually blows, it will be all the more spectacular. The events we saw in the former Jugoslavia were possibly a crystal ball to our own future. For now, though, we can pretend that there isn't a little of the Serb in each of us.
