Gordon Brown apologised to the nation this week. Not for the war in Afghanistan, or the war in Iraq, or the forthcoming war with Iran, nor for the gold bullion sell off, or letting the lunatics in the City strip mine the country of its wealth. He didn’t apologise for his frightening YouTube videos or going on the Piers Morgan show or for bullying his staff, which didn’t happen, obviously, because a scary Peter Handleman gave the press the full pscho-lamp eyeball treatment and hissed that it hadn’t. He didn’t say sorry for the E.U. referendum that was promised but never came, for the money spent on schools that don’t each, hospitals that don’t cure or police that don’t…police.
Of the multicoloured, many and various things for which he could have begged our forgiveness, none was lowermost in our minds than the one he selected, seemingly at random, from the Rolodex of Iniquity. This week, the Dour Leader said sorry for the scarcely believable policy of successive governments to tear children from their families and send them abroad to populate Commonwealth countries with white Anglo-Saxons. As awful as that is, it had nothing whatever to do with Gordon Brown, as he was only sixteen years old when it ended. Next he’ll be apologising for the Three-Day Week, the Irish Potato Famine and the break up of the Spice Girls - they didn’t have anything to do with him either.
The other big news of the week, which followed no apology whatsoever, was a will-they-won’t-they kiss and make up cliffhanger concerning John Terry and Wayne Bridge. As professional football has very strict rules on inter-player kissing, which is allowed only in moments of great celebration, a hand shake - or lack of one - became the focal point of an excitable gaggle of wittering commentators, who are all predicting disaster for the national team after the affair remained unresolved. John done Wayney a wrong-un and now Wayne won’t come out to play. We won’t have a strong defence and we’ll get beaten in the World Cup. Again. And this was the year we convinced ourselves that we could have won it. Again. And Gordon Brown hasn’t apologised about that at all.