Nelson Mandela's death prompts Tory act of contrition - beautifully written

[malaise]

http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2013/dec/09/nelson-mandela-death-davd-cameron-ed-miliband
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Thin but visible, a layer of irony hung over yesterday's parliamentary tributes to Nelson Mandela as Britain's political class rushed forward to touch the fallen hero's garment, as if to say: "We'd like to be him, on our best day." Bill Clinton once said just that.

Everyone was aware that South Africa's former colonial power had been complicit in apartheid's creation as well as its destruction, a record like that of no other legislature in the world.

A generation ago, Margaret Thatcher had dismissed him as a terrorist leader and a Tory youth organisation had worn "Hang Nelson Mandela" T-shirts. None were visible on potbellied nostalgics yesterday. But how not to turn a wake into a punch-up?

Mandela-esque restraint was the answer. Speaker Bercow, ex-head of the offending youth organisation, had made it easier by admitting he had been on the wrong side. So did David Cameron, who took an apartheid-sponsored freebie south at the not-so-tender age of 23, but paid a handsome tribute. If reflected glory was part of the day's calculation, so was contrition.

The prime minister can rise to big occasions, but did not do so here. Cameron said all the right things about this "towering figure" who reminded us all that "progress is not just handed down as a gift but won through struggle" – not normally an Etonian sentiment. Yet he rattled through it as if he had a helicopter to catch. When he described the brutality of the old regime, someone cried: "You went there."