It works both ways: there are victims of tragedy who come to me who have experienced grief of such magnitude that they cannot reconcile. Likewise, I cannot change the mentality of those who committed the crimes or the fools who followed them.

A gifted polyglot Ashdown is fluent in Mandarin Chinese and other languages. He is currently the Chair of the Liberal Democrats 2015 General Election Team. After service as a Royal Marine and as an intelligence officer for the UK security services Ashdown was a Member of Parliament (MP) for Yeovil from 1983 to 2001 and leader of the Liberal Democrats from 1988 until August 1999; later he was the international High Representative for Bosnia and Herzegovina from 27 May 2002 to 30 May 2006 following his vigorous lobbying for military action against Yugoslavia in the 1990s.