Sorry

 I'm sorry. I apologise. I was wrong.

Now, that's not so hard to do, is it?

Lord knows, as a man quick to anger, and quite frequently spectacularly wrong about things, I've had plenty of cause to utter those words over the course of a lifetime attempting (and quite often failing) to be on the right side of the argument (even as I type that I realise that seeing the world in those terms is, in itself, part of the problem).

This is a post which is, in part, about politics, but it's also about football. I'm sure most have you have by now cottoned on to the fact that Priti Patel's mealy-mouthed non-apology for having been found to be in breach of the Ministerial code is the inspiration for this short piece. Despite an unequivocal report that found her to be a bully, and to have treated her staff to all manner of verbal abuse, the woman now immortalised by Boris Johnson's WhatsApp messages as "The Pritster" issued the standard defence of people who are determined not to apologise properly. You'll have heard a variant of this before, the "I'm sorry if you felt.." apology, a conditional apology, not actually an apology at all.

"I'm sorry if you felt..." is a valid argument if the matter is still up for debate, it's a handy way of acknowledging that you may be in the wrong, without actually admitting any wrong-doing. It's also a useful tool for de-escalating an argument, giving a little ground without abandoning the field entirely. However, it also comes with the unspoken caveat "but, I'm still right". In Ms Patel's case, the matter was not up for debate. She's been found guilty by an independent investigation, whose findings were then summarily dismissed by World King Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson because it's not convenient for him right now.

You will recall similar obfuscation from now-defenstrated spad-u-like, Galaxy Brain Dom Cummings, earlier this year, when he was caught bang to rights breaking lock-down. Arguably, a straightforward apology would have helped to smooth the whole thing over, but he chose not to, and Johnson backed him up (in the process burning through a vast amount of political capital, and effectively causing open season on lock-down-flouting).  

I'm not entirely certain when not saying sorry became a thing, I came of age politically in the nineties, and my memory of the news that decade is largely of disgraced Minister after disgraced Minister saying they were sorry for whichever misdemeanour they'd been caught out on (mostly extra-curricular intercourse, or so it seemed) as the Major government collapsed amidst "Tory sleaze" But at some point since, it seems that the practice of saying sorry has ceased. The traditional mea culpa has given way to the conditional "if" or the passive "mistakes were made".

I understand the political reasoning behind this, admitting guilt gives your opponents a stick to beat you with. But I would argue that in many cases doing so quickly and cleanly means the whole affair disappears much faster, as the news cycle rumbles ever on. You also then have the irrefutable defence of "Look, I've said I'm sorry".

As to where the football comes in, I try to steer clear of football discourse, as the only type more one-eyed than political. But it does have relevance to the argument. Yesterday, Tottenham Hotspur inflicted a 2-0 defeat on Manchester City, a decent result for them. One journalist described this a  "Statement Victory", only immediately to be taken issue with by fans of other clubs saying it was anything but. So far, so predictable, but it got me thinking about the peculiar nature of partisan football fandom, where opinion is fact. 

A football match is a fluid thing, and two sets of fans can see the same game and come home with wildly different interpretations. Spurs fans saw yesterday's game as a defensive masterclass of catching a too-open team on the counter, the result was never in doubt. Fans of other clubs (particularly Liverpool and Arsenal) saw it as a fluky win against the odds, against a superior team (who are still nevertheless not as good as their own team). There is no "truth" to a football match, only interpretation, a couple of bobbles or actions either way and any other result was possible, that's partly what so often makes sport entertaining, you're never 100% sure what's going to happen.

But listen to fans, and this sort of relativism is anathema. If they lose it is only because of poor interpretation of the rules, terrible luck and other, darker reasons. Fans of Harry Kane will say he's the best striker inn the world, when this is disputed by other fans they don't say he's fourth or fifth, they say he's the worst. Neither of these positions is probable, but the all or nothing dialectic of football fandom (for a certain type of fan) insists that this is the only logical position to take.

I bring this up because Patel's non-apology allows her fans this indeterminate space to move in. In being found guilty but not admitting it, she's allowing her fans room to interpret the result. We see it again in the US election. Donald Trump, for all his bluster, does not believe that he's won, but he knows that by not admitting defeat he can empower his base to disbelieve the result. In creating a world where his believers can make the case that they've won he is attempting to alter inalienable, objective facts, making them a matter of opinion.

Facts are not opinion. Trump knows this. Patel knows this. This refusal to admit failure is ultimately extremely damaging to public life, as people see over and over again that actions don't have consequences. It's okay to firmly believe that your team were robbed, but it's not okay to change the result.