I was musing last night on apologies, non-apologies and anti-apologies. You know, the kind of thing where someone has offended you and then says "I'm sorry you felt offended" or "you take life way too seriously" or anything to imply that it is the offended person who is at fault, not the perpetrator. I was going to blog at length, but I haven't got time, and then I discovered this piece in the Times by Matthew Parris, who has said it better than I could anyway:

 

There are many of ways of not quite apologising, and they all take longer than the real thing. The real thing needs only one word. “Sorry.” Or if you want to spin it out, “I'm sorry.”

The moment you start adding words to these, you risk detracting from the force of the apology. But of course, consciously or otherwise, that's often what people are trying to do.

I have identified Seven Deadly Sins of non-apology. They are the Off-target, the Facetious, the Reproachful (you shouldn't be so stupid), the Reproachful (you shouldn't be so sensitive), the I-didn't-mean-it, the Vicarious and the Circumlocutory apologies.

Take Russell Brand's insolent attempt to express regret for the answerphone messages he and Jonathan Ross left on Andrew Sachs's machine: “I'd like to take this opportunity to issue a personal Russell Brand apology to Andrew Sachs, the great comic actor who played Manuel, for a message that Jonathan and I left on his answerphone, but it was quite funny. But, sometimes you mustn't swear on someone's answerphone and that's why I'd like to apologise personally.”

If so, he failed. By being facetious he added insult to injury. He also usefully exemplified the first two of my Seven Deadly Sins of Non-apology. First the Off-target apology: avoiding the real offence and apologising for something irrelevant. The language, as Russell Brand well knows, was not the biggest problem about those calls. If he'd called to say Mr Sachs was f***ing brilliant the world would not be up in arms today.

Second – and Brand is guilty of this too – is the Facetious apology. Take the 18th-century playwright Richard Sheridan's apology to the Commons for calling a fellow MP a liar: “Mr Speaker, I said the hon member was a liar it is true and I am sorry for it. The hon member may place the punctuation where he pleases.” Or Dennis Skinner MP who, on being ordered to withdraw his description of David Owen as a “pompous sod”, offered to delete the word “pompous”.

Next – and very famously – come the third and fourth evasions: two categories of the Reproachful apology, where the offender expresses regret that upset was caused, without entirely conceding that anyone ought to have been upset. The “you shouldn't be so stupid” variety of reproach carries a half-suggestion that it's actually other people's paranoia or misunderstanding that is to blame.

George Osborne's recent apology for talking about a donation to a controversial Russian, on his yacht – “In politics it is not just what you say or what you do, it's how things look. If I am honest, this didn't look very good and I regret that. I have changed the way that I am going to operate when it comes to fundraising, and I will not discuss individual donations with individual donors. That is an appropriate thing for me to do” – does go some way to expressing regret, but almost implies that his mistake was to overlook how (wrongly) mistrusting we all are.

The “you shouldn't be so sensitive” variety of reproach suggests that the culprit's real mistake has been not to realise what a delicate little flower the offended party was. Prominent among Boris Johnson's many apologies to the people of Liverpool was the thought that he'd never have published what he did if he had realised how thin-skinned Scousers can be on certain subjects.

Fifth comes the “I didn't mean it” apology. F.W. de Klerk, the former South African President, spoilt an otherwise perfectly acceptable apology for apartheid in 1992 with his first sentence: “It was not our intention to deprive people of their rights and to cause misery, but eventually separate development and apartheid led to just that. In so far as that occurred, we deeply regret it. Deep regret goes much further that just saying you are sorry. Deep regret says that if I could turn the clock back and if I could do anything about it, I would have liked to have avoided it. Yes, we say we are sorry.”

Apartheid's injustices were not an unintended consequence of a fine theory, and to suggest this robbed the apology of some, not all, of its force.

Then – and this really infuriates people – there's the Vicarious apology: saying sorry for something somebody else did, sometimes a very long time ago. Politicians and priests are particularly prone to this because it gets the apologiser cheap kudos without costing him anything. A telltale sign of an imminent vicarious apology is the tortured appearance of the passive tense: “Mistakes have been made,” or “Lessons have been learnt,” in place of that difficult little word “I”. Tony Blair has been good enough to apologise for the Irish Potato Famine; and in its “Sorry Day” the essentially white Australian majority apologised for their ancestors having taken the Aborigines' land from them. They did not offer to give it back.

It is important that the speaker feels a sense of real shame, even if on behalf of others. Ken Livingstone's apology, as Mayor of London – “As Mayor I offer an apology on behalf of London and its institutions for their role in the transatlantic slave trade” – lacks the necessary sense of personal shame. It is almost accusatory.

Seventh comes the Circumlocutory or roundabout apology. This contains all the elements of a proper “I'm sorry” without actually including those words. Like the little boy who won't say sorry to his sister (why are men so much worse at this than women? Pride?) the speaker just can't make himself spit them out. Here's the former Defence Secretary Des Browne, an essentially decent man, not quite pronouncing the S word after a PR gaffe in which service personnel who had been held captive in Iran were allowed to sell their stories: “I have expressed a degree of regret that can be equated with an apology.”

Apologies like most of these can only add to the anger that injured parties feel, and the contempt felt by the rest of us. The rules for an effective apology are (1) Be quick: don't wait for it to be dragged out of you; (2) Be succinct: don't hedge, or qualify, or try to explain; and (3) Be sincere. If you don't feel sorry, don't pretend to be. Your audience will always know.

The ones who got it right

“I made a bad mistake. It's indefensible and I'm sorry about it.” Bill Clinton, on the Lewinsky affair (October 1998)
VERDICT Short and to the point.

“I take full responsibility for my actions. I also accept that there are various personal issues that I need to address and have started taking the difficult, yet necessary, steps to resolve them. I want to apologise to all of the people I have let down because of my behaviour.” Kate Moss, after being filmed taking cocaine (September 2005)
VERDICT Part apology, part Academy Award acceptance.

“This is without doubt the worst moment of my career. I will always regret my actions during last night's game. I have apologised to the England players and management and I want every England supporter to know how deeply sorry I am.” David Beckham after being sent off at the 1998 World Cup, which contributed to England's defeat to Argentina (July 1998).
VERDICT What more could he have said? No wonder he's nicknamed Golden Balls.

“I want to apologise to my fans for screwing up again, and to promise them I'll sort myself out. And to say sorry to everybody else, just for boring them.” George Michael, after he was arrested in a public toilet in Hampstead, North London, in possession of crack cocaine and cannabis (September 2008).
VERDICT The perfect way to handle a we've-been-here-before apology.

“Richard and I were very shocked and also angry on your behalf. We're very sorry.” TV host Judy Finnigan apologising to viewers over claims that callers were told to phone a premium-rate competition number even after contestants had been chosen (February 2007).
VERDICT Not pointing the finger of blame, not admitting to any responsibility, siding with the aggrieved. Clever.

“Believe me, I never made any proposals of marriage to anyone. Therefore forgive me, I beg you, and accept this public apology that I yield to your anger as an act of love. One of many. A big kiss. Silvio.” Silvio Berlusconi, to his wife Veronica Lario after she accused the Italian Prime Minister of flirting with other women (February 2007).
VERDICT Clearly not his first, and somewhat oleaginous, but Silvio gets away with it (as usual).

“I acted like a person completely out of control when I was arrested, and said things that I do not believe to be true and which are despicable. I am deeply ashamed of everything I said. Also, I take this opportunity to apologise to the deputies involved for my belligerent behaviour. They have always been there for me in my community and indeed probably saved me from myself.” Mel Gibson on his barrage of abuse after being arrested for drink driving (July 2006).
VERDICT Fantastic deviation. He's so busy supporting local causes that we've almost overlooked his anti-Semitic remarks. Almost.

The ones who got it wrong

“I am heartsick about my personal legal situation and deeply sorry for the pain and difficulties it has caused our employees.” Martha Stewart, after being found guilty of share trading (March 2004).
VERDICT Is she apologising, or just regretting the fact she's been banged up?

“We all make mistakes, we all do things we regret. I hope in the end people will be kind enough to balance the good against the bad.” Jeffrey Archer, on his past behaviour (Nov 2005).
VERDICT He might as well have said: “I do a lot for a charity.”

“I regret deeply any injuries that may have been done in the course of the events that led to this decision. I would say only that if some of my judgments were wrong, and some were wrong, they were made in what I believed at the time to be the best interest of the nation.” Richard Nixon, resigning as US President (August 1974).
VERDICT Best interests of the nation, or himself?

“The evidence about Saddam having actual biological and chemical weapons, as opposed to the capability to develop them, has turned out to be wrong. I acknowledge that and accept it. I can apologise for the information that turned out to be wrong, but I can't, sincerely at least, apologise for removing Saddam.” Tony Blair, on the Iraq dossier (September 2004).
VERDICT Note: he could apologise but he doesn't actually do it.

“I will bigly, hugely admit that I was wrong, and I will apologise to Michael J. Fox if I am wrong in characterising his behaviour on this commercial as an act.” Rush Limbaugh, on confronting Michael J. Fox for “exaggerating the effects of Parkinson's disease” (October 2006).
VERDICT Where do we start? Wrong on every level.

“In a life as busy and varied as mine, you make good judgments and bad judgments.” Jonathan Aitken, over his failure to disclose a secret Arab stake in the breakfast station TV-am (June 1997).
VERDICT And there we were thinking he was immoral, when all along he was just trying to juggle his diary.

“I do apologise but I don't regret my behaviour because regretting it would mean he was right to say what he said.” Zinédine Zidane, on headbutting Italy defender Marco Materazzi in the World Cup final (July 2006).
VERDICT We empathise, we really do. But attacking an opponent is not excusable, even when he insults your mother.

“The Duke of Edinburgh regrets any offence which may have been caused by remarks he is reported as making earlier today. With hindsight, he accepts what were intended as light-hearted comments were inappropriate.” Buckingham Palace, on Prince Philip saying a fuse box looked “as though it was put in by an Indian” (August 1999).
VERDICT Apologising by proxy never works.

“Look, I regret the remark. It was in a light banter. She did a remarkable job.” John Prescott, on telling a TV show he didn't like Cherie Blair (October 2008).
VERDICT Prezzer tries the Russell Brand “It was only a joke” tactic, to similar effect.

… And then there's Boris

“In so far as it imposed an outdated stereotype on the whole of Liverpool, and thereby caused offence, I sincerely apologise.” Boris Johnson, in an open letter to the Liverpool Echo, in 2004, after writing a leader in The Spectator saying that Liverpudlians were “hooked on grief”. Michael Howard, the Conservative leader at the time, sent Johnson to the city to make a personal apology.

“I am very sorry this decision has been taken in response to tabloid stories about my private life.” Boris, after being sacked from the front bench by Michael Howard, the Conservative leader, in 2004 after it emerged that stories of his affair with a journalist – denied by Johnson as “an inverted pyramid of piffle” – were not piffle at all.

“I meant no insult to the people of Papua New Guinea, who I'm sure lead lives of blameless bourgeois domesticity … My remarks were inspired by a Time Life book I have which does indeed show relatively recent photos of Papua New Guinean tribes engaged in warfare, and I'm fairly certain that cannibalism was involved.” Boris, after referring to “Papua New Guinea-style orgies of cannibalism and chief-killing” in 2006.

“I do feel very sad that people have been so offended by these words and I'm sorry that I've caused this offence. But if you look at the article as written they really do not bear the construction that you're putting on them. I feel very strongly that this is something which is simply not in my heart. I'm absolutely 100 per cent anti-racist, I despise and loathe racism.” Boris, in July, on referring to black people as “piccaninnies” and referring to “watermelon smiles” in a column written six years ago.

Matthew Parris