The post you are reporting:
For those of you who says Brown does not need to say sorry. A true story told by Matthew Parris in the Times that is a matter of public record:
-------------------------
Twenty years ago a political aide working at the heart of the office of the leader of the Conservative Party was exposed as having dispatched a wholly inappropriate communication. It was to a woman who had written complaining to Margaret Thatcher about her council house.
The aide had replied that she should be grateful to have a taxpayer-subsidised house at all. Splashed across the press and coming as it had from the Boss's office, the letter was rude and stupid.
Thatcher knew what to do. "I'm so very sorry" was a headline on the front page of the Daily Mirror on March 30, 1979. She had sent by courier a handwritten apology to the woman. Explaining that she had known nothing of the letter (this was true), she described her own anguish at its contents. "I can only apologise," she said, and then, again, "I'm so very sorry." The aide (who was leaving the office anyway) was told that if the media asked, they'd be informed he had been sacked.
Hopefully, Labour printed three million copies of that Mirror page as an election leaflet. But the offended lady's response had helped to kill the story: "I feel the apology is justified and I'm pleased Mrs Thatcher was brave enough to own up," she said.
That aide was me. I had wanted to defend myself by publishing the woman's first letter, but Margaret Thatcher's reaction was unhesitating.
Say sorry, fast, unconditionally, before anyone asks us to. Then shut up.
-----------------
Now that is a lesson that Gordon Brown could have learned from. (I think Parris meant 30 years ago incidentally) By his refusal to apologise Brown has caused the story to gain more traction, so why did he not simply do it. It can only be the same syndrome that prevents him from owning up to his responsibilities over the economy. His refusal in this case actually helps to highlight the latter.
