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Sorry to bother you — How and when should I give an apology
Useful tips for underrated words in our language
It struck me the other day how Jeremy Corbyn a British politician serving as Leader of the Labour Party and Leader of the Opposition refused to give an apology for the pain and hurt related to accusations of anti-Semitism within his party. No matter how the interviewer phrased the question, he danced around and failed to say the simple words, “I am/ We are sorry.”
He had a platform and opportunity to address the accusations, which we all knew had substance because his political party had supposedly taken disciplinary action against those involved. Instead of focusing on this fact he chose to counter a point made by Ephraim Mirvis, Cheif Rabbi of the United Kingdom and the Commonwealth.
For me, this served to reinforce the accusations as a leader, and a political party they had not and were not doing enough and this woeful failure was indeed a crisis. A timely election crisis for the incumbent Conservative party.
This whole episode got me thinking about when and how we say sorry. I thought it was simple. I thought if you knew by your actions, you did wrong, or you knew you were responsible for causing hurt, bad feeling towards another then it followed, you say, “Sorry.”
