What Gets Me!

I’m sorry. I’m very sorry. I’m so ****ing sorry! My apologies to the Pythons, and to you for the asterisks, but at least I’ve done it. I’ve said I’m sorry, which really wasn’t so hard. But neither was it especially meaningful, heartfelt or remotely relevant to anyone, which brings me vaguely to my point(s).

We seem, recently, to have been deluged with stupendously irrelevant, high-profile demands for meaningless apologies. To what end? I’ll tell you to what end: to satisfy the egos and occupy the silly season time of pompous, self-opinionated, so-called journalists (frequently from the BBC) intent on trying to make, rather than simply report, news content. That really gets me.

Example One concerns the activities of an apparently spiteful, immature nerd (I don’t actually know the man, but he appears to fit the stereotype I formed whilst on the fringes of student politics like a glove) operating from the bowels of Number 10. His job seems to have been to come up with all sorts of dangerously hair-brained (one-eyed?) plans to discredit political opponents of our beloved Gordon Brown. Although which politician (or even journalist) would be stupid enough to execute Damian McBride’s alleged schemes is beyond even my imagination. From what we have heard, they would have been thrown out way before they had seen the light of day (which they never would have done had it not been for a spot of careless e-mailing). Although certainly no apologist for Mr. Brown myself, I would hazard a guess that he probably had far bigger fish to fry than to spend his time monitoring the childish meanderings of his so-called ‘attack dog’ beavering away in the back office. The world financial meltdown for a start.

But the media thought otherwise, and decided to raise the stakes. Why hadn’t Gordon himself apologised to the notional ‘targets’? PUBLICALLY? So he quickly made a statement expressing his ‘deep regret’ that this sort of thing had happened in his office: pretty much an apology, really. And he described it as behaviour that had no place in British politics. OK? Well I happen to think it was OK. Given that his was an old-fashioned type of collective responsibility, I can see no real need for much artificial gnashing and wailing of teeth; an expression of deep regret was fine by me. But wait… next we were told by our headline-making superheroes at the BBC that “Prime Minister Gordon Brown was refusing to apologise”! In their infinite arrogance they played semantics, deciding that a perceived omission constituted a decision to actively refuse to apologise. What’s more they sprung the question on every politician this side of Land’s End who appeared behind a microphone – often totally out of context – asking what they thought of this ‘refusal’. Some – stupidly – offered an opinion, which generated even sillier headlines! “Joe Nobody slams Brown’s refusal to apologise etc etc”.

Eventually it got so far out of hand that Brown did actually say he was sorry, in a gobbledygook, insincere sort of way. He announced that he took full responsibility and, to prove it, had dismissed the person responsible! Remember, these are the movers and shakers who affect our daily lives. Quite what right anyone except the people directly implicated had to demand an apology escapes me. What good would it do anyway, and how much would it actually mean? And why the hell was the whole tawdry episode clogging up my TV and radio for almost 5 solid days over Easter??

Example Two concerns Hillsborough. Now I know that this is a delicate subject, and I feel nothing but the deepest sympathy for those bereaved or otherwise traumatised by the disaster. I don’t know all the details, and am not seeking to target any blame. But I do get heartily fed up witnessing attention-seeking, rebel-rousing political activists and their journalist lackeys seeking to whip up another frenzy of ‘apology demanding’. Egging on these poor unfortunate souls to re-live their anguish through staged interviews and reportage; encouraging them to try and express how they can’t possibly achieve ‘closure’ without a public apology from someone. But just who?

The whole society that sat back and allowed a rude, unruly, disrespectful generation of so-called football fans to freely behave as they wanted without seeking to put things right? The architects who designed the stadium? South Yorkshire Police, who had the thankless task of patrolling the chaos as thousands of late arrivals (possibly drunk, possibly ticketless) charged the entrance and, subsequently, caused the crush? The latecomers themselves? The senior officers who perhaps made questionable decisions with the best of intentions?

Out of Hillsborough came the Taylor Report, which changed major sports grounds forever. Steps were taken to ensure that such a disaster couldn’t happen again. So I wish someone would tell me precisely and logically what an ‘apology’ might actually mean to those who still grieve. Could it ever be sincere, heartfelt and personal? What good would it do? Of course everyone concerned was/is sorry that the episode happened – that goes without saying. So I wish everyone incessantly bleating the odds would just shut up and let people get on with their lives. Of course if it’s compensation they’re really after, why don’t they just come out and say so?! I expect they’ve already had some, but perhaps they deserve more – I don’t know.

What I’m really driving at is the worth of an apology. Simply demanding apologies left, right and centre is not only pompous, it is pointless. Apologies, to me, are very personal things that happen between individuals; to be meaningful they must surely be instinctive, heartfelt and – above all – voluntary. Not forced out of people by public demand. If someone is ‘big enough’ to take responsibility and apologise with real sincerity, we tend to respect them. If they fail to apologise for something that they, personally, have done wrong, we tend to think less of them. That’s it. They either do it or they don’t. End of story. It may well be the case that our collective sense of honour and responsibility has evaporated away in the last 50 years or so, but attempting to force parroted apologies from people who aren’t truly disposed to utter them is simply a waste of time.

If any of this has caused any offence, I deeply regret it. That has not been my intention and, of course, I’m sorry...