25 Quotes by Jonathan Powell

When it comes to terrorism, governments seem to suffer from a collective amnesia. All of our historical experience tells us that there can be no purely military solution to a political problem, and yet every time we confront a new terrorist group, we begin by insisting we will never talk to them.

Every time we meet a new terrorist group, we argue they are utterly different and we can learn nothing from the last time. Of course they are different, but some lessons on how we deal with them seem to apply in all cases.

I started off in radio, then made little films for Granada. I applied for a job at 'Weekend World,' and they turned me down; I'd also applied to the Foreign Office, which accepted me.

It was the rootlessness that went with being the son of an RAF officer that shaped me. I had been to 11 schools by the time I was 9.

Northern Ireland still suffers from its past, and it will take generations to escape sectarianism and for violence to end totally. Nonetheless, it is in a different place now than during the Troubles, and it will not go back to the old days.

You should never appease terrorists. The mistake made by critics of the 'talking to your enemy' approach is to equate talking with appeasing.

You can't negotiate in public. People won't make concessions in public. They will do that in private. Like sausage making, you have to do it behind closed doors.

There seems to be a sense in the British media that prime ministers enjoy going to war. They do not. The decision to send British soldiers into battle is the worst and most stomach-churning senior politicians have to take. It makes them wake up in the middle of the night in a cold sweat worrying if they have done the right thing.

A peace agreement isn't like a fairy story. You don't live happily ever after.