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Compare and contrast the skillful shimmy of Labour's next leader with the clunk of the current one: the former apologised to an angry talkback caller who had lost from the abolition of the 10p tax rate: "I am sorry that you have been placed in this position and it shouldn't have happened."

When Gordon was asked if he was sorry for the same thing said: "Of course, because it's unfortunate when things go wrong for people and we've tried to sort that out immediately over the last few days. . . 

That form of words drags us into it; somehow, we're to blame as well. Stephen Byers invented the form when confronted with the fact that he had said the thing which was not on a TV show some years ago: "If people got the impression [that I wasn't telling the truth], that is obviously something I regret." 

NB: by making such  a full, frank and unequivocal apology, Straw bounced the PM. In William Hague's phrase, Straw is "on manouevres".