The Brown child migrants apology...
Discussion
Like Billy Liar before him, he can only make a token apology for something in which he had no part, neither of them have the integrity to actually apologise for things that they have done, that would require honour, a sense of decency and a basic understanding of the concept of honesty. 
catso said:
Like Billy Liar before him, he can only make a token apology for something in which he had no part, neither of them have the integrity to actually apologise for things that they have done, that would require honour, a sense of decency and a basic understanding of the concept of honesty.
I was going to write a similar thing, the migrations stopped 40 years ago so no-one in parliament today had anything to do with it. Pure PR exercise by winky.Jasandjules said:
No, more like a c**t.
Did he apologise for putting our troops into Iraq on an illegal war?
Did he apologise for p***ng away our gold reserves?
Did he apologise for p***ng away billions on IT projects etc.
BUT he thinks he ought to apologise for something he DIDN'T do? FFS.
This ^^Did he apologise for putting our troops into Iraq on an illegal war?
Did he apologise for p***ng away our gold reserves?
Did he apologise for p***ng away billions on IT projects etc.
BUT he thinks he ought to apologise for something he DIDN'T do? FFS.
Something written in a similar vein
Gerald Warner said:
Sorry, Gordon Brown, but these apologies provoke derision
The PM has many reasons to express regret, so why pick one he had nothing to do with, asks Gerald Warner.
"And this is a genuinely historic moment, as Gordon Brown, the Prime Minister, rises from his place in the House of Commons… He is standing now at the Dispatch Box… And yes, he is announcing he wants to make a public apology for – er – the deportation of children to Commonwealth countries, between 60 and 90 years ago."
When one recalls all the things for which Gordon Brown owes Britain an apology – beginning with his profligate Budget in 2002, which laid the foundations of our present fiscal woes, followed by his mismanagement of the economy for a further eight years, his complicity in controversial wars in which British troops were denied adequate equipment and, in the view of many, his treatment of colleagues and staff – it is a provocation to the country that he should apologise to Parliament for an historical event in which he played no part.
Many sceptics are asking whether Brown might more appropriately have apologised to his Chancellor for allegedly unleashing "the forces of Hell" against him. Instead, Mr Brown and Alistair Darling have been posing on the Commons front bench like a pair of love-struck canaries sharing a perch.
The public will be unsurprised by this latest piece of hypocrisy. The Prime Minister has every reason to apologise, and there are plenty of ways he could do so with dignity – even without adopting the parodic Maoist dictum that "Suicide is the sincerest form of self-criticism."
Instead, Mr Brown has succumbed to a very modern tendency. In the old days, the maxim of politicians was "Never apologise, never explain", variously attributed to the Duke of Wellington, Disraeli and a number of other possible contenders. (Some purists insist it was uttered by Admiral Fisher in the variant form: "Never explain. Never apologise.") Now, the vogue is for pointless apologies for events in the remote past, made by people who were not the perpetrators. When the heat is on, the conventional wisdom now holds, divert attention from your own blunders with an apology for the Norman Conquest, or whatever. Nobody did this kind of pseudo-apology better than Tony Blair: his glistening, Bambi-eyed sincerity as he apologised for the Irish potato famine, or Britain's role in the slave trade, was the stuff of which Oscar nominations are made. But he defiantly refused, at the Chilcot Inquiry, to apologise for the Iraq War, which actually was his responsibility.
Blair belonged to the Clinton school of feeling other people's pain, while evading responsibility for one's own conduct. Outside of politics, one of the worst offenders has been the Catholic Church: Pope John Paul II issued more than 100 apologies for events in which he had no conceivable involvement, including the Crusades and the trial of Galileo.
Then there is the other form of modern apology: one that expresses contrition not for the original action, but for the reactions of those who were offended. It seems that the only people who make genuine expressions of personal sorrow are those with money at stake: witness Tiger Woods's recent grovelling to his wife and sponsors, or that of Akio Toyoda, the head of Toyota, to those harmed by his company's faulty cars. In defence of Toyoda, it could be argued that he was at least apologising for a contemporary event in which he was personally implicated. And Japan has a culture of apology (though it has been sluggish with regard to events in the Second World War), so such conduct is not as blatantly opportunist as the irrelevant apologies with which we are deluged in the West.
Otherwise, it would be preferable if individuals and institutions renounced the archaeology of contrition and addressed their present-day delinquencies. Historical apologies, rather than appeasing public opinion, now provoke derision. As implacable nannies used to tell their charges: "Mr Sorry comes too late."
The PM has many reasons to express regret, so why pick one he had nothing to do with, asks Gerald Warner.
"And this is a genuinely historic moment, as Gordon Brown, the Prime Minister, rises from his place in the House of Commons… He is standing now at the Dispatch Box… And yes, he is announcing he wants to make a public apology for – er – the deportation of children to Commonwealth countries, between 60 and 90 years ago."
When one recalls all the things for which Gordon Brown owes Britain an apology – beginning with his profligate Budget in 2002, which laid the foundations of our present fiscal woes, followed by his mismanagement of the economy for a further eight years, his complicity in controversial wars in which British troops were denied adequate equipment and, in the view of many, his treatment of colleagues and staff – it is a provocation to the country that he should apologise to Parliament for an historical event in which he played no part.
Many sceptics are asking whether Brown might more appropriately have apologised to his Chancellor for allegedly unleashing "the forces of Hell" against him. Instead, Mr Brown and Alistair Darling have been posing on the Commons front bench like a pair of love-struck canaries sharing a perch.
The public will be unsurprised by this latest piece of hypocrisy. The Prime Minister has every reason to apologise, and there are plenty of ways he could do so with dignity – even without adopting the parodic Maoist dictum that "Suicide is the sincerest form of self-criticism."
Instead, Mr Brown has succumbed to a very modern tendency. In the old days, the maxim of politicians was "Never apologise, never explain", variously attributed to the Duke of Wellington, Disraeli and a number of other possible contenders. (Some purists insist it was uttered by Admiral Fisher in the variant form: "Never explain. Never apologise.") Now, the vogue is for pointless apologies for events in the remote past, made by people who were not the perpetrators. When the heat is on, the conventional wisdom now holds, divert attention from your own blunders with an apology for the Norman Conquest, or whatever. Nobody did this kind of pseudo-apology better than Tony Blair: his glistening, Bambi-eyed sincerity as he apologised for the Irish potato famine, or Britain's role in the slave trade, was the stuff of which Oscar nominations are made. But he defiantly refused, at the Chilcot Inquiry, to apologise for the Iraq War, which actually was his responsibility.
Blair belonged to the Clinton school of feeling other people's pain, while evading responsibility for one's own conduct. Outside of politics, one of the worst offenders has been the Catholic Church: Pope John Paul II issued more than 100 apologies for events in which he had no conceivable involvement, including the Crusades and the trial of Galileo.
Then there is the other form of modern apology: one that expresses contrition not for the original action, but for the reactions of those who were offended. It seems that the only people who make genuine expressions of personal sorrow are those with money at stake: witness Tiger Woods's recent grovelling to his wife and sponsors, or that of Akio Toyoda, the head of Toyota, to those harmed by his company's faulty cars. In defence of Toyoda, it could be argued that he was at least apologising for a contemporary event in which he was personally implicated. And Japan has a culture of apology (though it has been sluggish with regard to events in the Second World War), so such conduct is not as blatantly opportunist as the irrelevant apologies with which we are deluged in the West.
Otherwise, it would be preferable if individuals and institutions renounced the archaeology of contrition and addressed their present-day delinquencies. Historical apologies, rather than appeasing public opinion, now provoke derision. As implacable nannies used to tell their charges: "Mr Sorry comes too late."
Raaaaah! Down with {insert current Prime Minister here}. I know far more about the gold reserves and money markets, I'm of course an expert on the legal technicalities of the war, far more than anyone currently employed by the government because of my perfect 20:20 hindsight and overhearing blokes pus saying it was wrong. I can of course formulate an action plan to pull the entire country out of recession if only they'd done what I said.
And it was all down to Brown, no-one else was involved in any of his dubious decisions, it was all him and his ballbag face to blame.
Raaarrggh. Pass my burning pitchfork
And it was all down to Brown, no-one else was involved in any of his dubious decisions, it was all him and his ballbag face to blame.
Raaarrggh. Pass my burning pitchfork
Dibby said:
I can of course formulate an action plan to pull the entire country out of recession if only they'd done what I said.
The recession was unavoidable. Totally screwing up the public finances so that we can't invest our way out of a recession by growing new industries (example in the 1980s was technology) was completely avoidable, IMO.Gassing Station | News, Politics & Economics | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff