The prime minister’s statement about the No 10 lockdown party implies that it’s our fault for not understanding the rules
A good apology can work wonders in improving relations between individuals and between groups. In acknowledging the wrong, taking responsibility for it, and doing something about it, one can repair the identities of both the offender and the offended. The person apologising is no longer a threat, and the one receiving the apology is no longer denigrated, allowing the two to come together in a new and more positive way.
The problem is that yesterday’s statement offered by Boris Johnson was not a good apology. It was full of justifications and it offered nothing in the way of actions. Indeed it was not an apology at all, for it didn’t accept that an offence had been committed in the first place. Rather it was a classic example of the political non-apology, which takes the rhetorical form of saying sorry (and indeed prominently includes words like “I am sorry” and “I apologise”), but which ultimately attributes blame to the other rather than taking it upon oneself. Far from repairing relations, it compounds the original offence and makes things still worse.
Stephen Reicher is a member of the Sage subcommittee advising on behavioural science
