Gordon: why not say ‘sorry’ the Ségo way?

By David Beeson

The outcry for Gordon Brown to apologise for all sorts of things shows no sign of dying down.

This might be the time for him to consider issuing an apology – but model it on the approach adopted by Ségolène Royal in France. Ségo, for those who are not aware of her fine CV, was the Socialist candidate for president in 2007, when she ran a pitifully incompetent campaign as a result of which she was trounced by Nicolas Sarkozy, or Sarko as he is known to his detractors, which is more or less everyone, and friends, if he still has any.

She has however recently reinvented herself. She must have found some new advisers. She’s suddenly learned to display a pugnacious determination and, above all, political effectiveness which were so badly missed back in 2007. In particular, she’s turned the apology into an offensive weapon in politics.

She recently apologised to the president of Senegal and to the Spanish Prime Minister for comments made by Sarko. The line she takes is that in voicing his views, Sarko does not speak for France, which rather suggests that she does. That’s a brilliant tactic. It positions her as the President France should have had and makes her sound like the obvious candidate to drive him out at the next election.

Perhaps Gordon could take a leaf out of her book. I have a modest proposal for an apology he could make right now:

‘I apologise profusely to the British people for having failed to notice more quickly that the path of financial deregulation on which Reaganite and Thatcherite economic policy had set us was leading us to disaster. I apologise for having failed to correct this irresponsible adventure over the last twelve years. I also apologise for any offense that may have been caused by the present Tory leaders’ failure to concentrate on the needs of the economy, favouring instead that party political advantage through constant background noise over MPs’ expenses or who should or should not be apologising for what. We try to educate them, but it isn’t easy.’

Now there would be an apology that would be worth making. Unreservedly.