Sorry is the new black it seems – everyone is at it right now. Accepting that some people have reasons to say sorry, it has been jumped on as the latest advertising Zeitgeist as well.
London’s Evening Standard is very sorry for being so negative in the past. When that nasssty Ken Livingstone was in charge, the paper hated him and when Boris stood for mayor they loved him for not being Ken. Now all that is to change and the paper will love the Mayor, who is umm, Boris.
So no real change there then?
Bank bosses are very sorry that they followed the rules laid out by the politicians in how to manage their risk and more importantly, they are very sorry they got caught. OK, they didn’t have to dump their debts into weird cholesterol (?) thingamajigs, but the tax and regulatory systems the politicians designed did tend to encourage it.
So the bankers are very sorry that they saw an open door and walked right through it.
The shareholders are also very sorry that their investments have been wiped out, although they were less sorry when the banks were making bumper profits and paying huge dividends to them each year.
Bankers are also very sorry they lent money to people who lied on their application forms about their income and allowed them to buy houses they couldn’t afford.
Those same home owners are feeling a very sorry lot at the moment and the prices of domestic property crashes to a level not seen for, well, maybe a couple of years. Houses are still overpriced based on a historic average, so home owners are likely to be feeling even more sorry for themselves in the future.
Of course home owners are not at all sorry that their remortgage mania drove house prices up to the stratosphere in the first place and made it nigh on impossible for first-time buyers to own a property. That’s all someone else’s fault.
Renters are not that sorry right now though as they casually walk away from buy-to-let properties and leave the owner in the lurch. Actually, renters tend to be a bit smug right now, and of course they are terribly sorry for that.
Politicians are very sorry at the moment as newspapers gleefully dig over their expenses claims.
Of course, it’s not the politicians fault that they just had to claim for 5p carrier bags and having moles cleared from their gardens. It was the system which forced them to make those claims.
An MP who dared to pop into M&S to buy lunch and then refused to claim for the cost would be hauled over to the Whips office and given a stern lecture about the importance of filling in claim forms for everything.
You see it wasn’t the MPs fault, it was the system – which they designed, and they are very sorry about that.
At the turn of the Millennium, there was much chatter in the press about what to call the forthcoming decade. We had the Swinging 60’s, recessionary 70’s, Thatcherite 80’s, the caring 90’s – what is the next decade called?
The noughties?
Well, it seems we have all been very naughty in the noughties – and as we approach the turn of the decade, we are now all very sorry that someone else screwed up and left us in the lurch.
I’m no better, I was rather too profligate in my spending and am probably living in a flat which is a bit too nice and expensive for my income. I have my own company which isn’t doing very well now, and I am feeling very sorry for myself – but that is the fault of the bankers / home owners / foreigners / politicians (delete as appropriate).
Sorry!
It would seem that the Noughties were the decade of the blame culture…… It’s as though no-one wants to take responsibility for their own actions and deal with the consequences.
I don’t wish to air my probably controversial views on your blog, but I think a lot of people should think about how they have acted and stop blaming others for their following misfortune…..(McCann’s, Baby P’s ‘family’, MPs, Bankers, Brokers ect ect)
Of course, I have never taken advantage of favourable conditions and left my morals at home.