Incaution

Lest through incaution failing, thou mayst be / A joy to others, a reproach to me.

Little did the members of the expedition, little did the cheering spectators on that exciting day divine the strange neglects, the strange incautions, and the consequent disasters and deaths […]

It always felt as though Hain's career, which began so powerfully with his youthful campaigning against apartheid, was going to come unstuck, but through political incaution, not financial incompetence.