The dangers of failing to apologise | thearticle

Cummings didn’t apologise. He just wouldn’t. Chris Wilkins, Theresa May’s former speech writer, told the “Westminster Hour” that the row could have been headed off by an apology on the

Friday or Saturday. A _Sunday Times_ source suggested that Downing Street tried to steer him in this direction, but that “he wouldn’t do it and there was no one who could make him do it”.

Tone matters. A politician’s non-apology apology wouldn’t wash. Nor would an overly-grudging sorry. The psychotherapist Phillip Hodson suggests Cummings could have won over his audience if

he’d talked about his feelings as a parent and really meant it, and had gone so far as to introduce a note of regret. The problem, Hodson acknowledges is that with an apology you concede the

prosecution’s case, and that for Cummings, facing opponents gunning for him, it is strategically important not to admit he has done anything wrong. Philip Collins, the  _Times_ columnist

and former Blair speechwriter, reckoned a clear apology at the start “would have made a lot of difference”, but was impossible because Cummings couldn’t accept fault. One of Cummings’s close

colleagues on Vote Leave gave an insight into his personality by reportedly claiming that he was more likely to resign than apologise. David Cameron made noteworthy apologies as Prime

Minister for the Hillsborough disaster (“profoundly sorry”), Bloody Sunday (“deeply sorry”) and over hiring Andy Coulson in the wake of phone-hacking (“a full and frank apology; I am

extremely sorry”). These were generous yes, but also calculated — the first two issues were distant in time, while Coulson’s behaviour was criminal; on other occasions Cameron didn’t say

sorry for calling Ukip members “fruitcakes and loonies” and he only belatedly apologised for the disarray after the EU referendum. Nonetheless, PR man Cameron is cut from a different cloth

to the “career psychopath” whom he urged Michael Gove to sack in 2013. He’s also very different from Cummings’s impulsive new boss. As the _Sunday Times_ said of the PM and his aide:

“they’re not two peas in a pod but where they do meet is on the idea of apologies. Boris has always been clear that he doesn’t ever say sorry”. Cummings’s non-apology can be seen not just as

a measure of character, but a reflection of the bitterly polarised times we live in. Opponents of the government and even thousands of members of the public flooding their MPs’ inboxes

weren’t just calling for an apology and explanation, they wanted Cummings out. A significant minority doubted the very authenticity of the reaction, felt Cummings had nothing to apologise

for and attacked the media for poisoning people’s minds. An example from the opposite end of the political spectrum: in a recent _Observer_ column, the comedian Stewart Lee made fun of Tom

Tugendhat by mocking his distinctive name. While Lee took a flight of fancy imagining Tugendhat as the scion of a German baron, 30 seconds of Googling tells you his father’s ancestors were

Austrian Jews (and his uncle’s title is a British life peerage). The column, which appeared in the _Observer Review_, was seen as a mocking reference to Tugendhat’s Jewish heritage. The

_Observer_ has been admired in the Jewish community for its stance on Labour’s handling of anti-Semitism and the paper’s editor, Paul Webster, is known to feel strongly about this issue.

After a number of writers picked up on Lee’s crassness, I put some questions to Webster. Who edited Lee’s copy? Did they check the origin of Tugendhat’s name? Would he publish a column that

mocked the names of Priti Patel or Kwasi Kwarteng? Webster didn’t respond. Instead, I got a standard answer from the comms team saying the column had been amended online and that “text

inconsistent with the _Observer_’s style guidelines” had been removed. There was no apology. In subsequent issues, there was no acknowledgement of the online revisions and no readers’

letters about the column. Should readers conclude the _Observer_ doesn’t care about fair treatment for Conservatives, including those critical of the PM like Tugendhat? Would it be weak for

the newspaper to apologise for the Lee column, saying it should not have been published in the form it was, and that it’s as prone as any other publication to lapses of judgement? How

regrettable that Cummings, his vehement defenders and harsh detractors, and the flagship Sunday liberal newspaper are all so reluctant to give their opponents an inch. There’s a dark side to

this, as perceptions grow of a self-righteous media hell-bent on opposing everything the Government does, while the Government uses this as a pretext to bypass media by denying journalists

access. It is an ugly situation. We need leaders and thinkers who are humble and empathetic above all. We need people big enough to make themselves small, and to say sorry. If not — well,

just look at America.