The Commonwealth summit has descended into yet another spectacle of grievance and guilt. African and Caribbean nations, with a collective whine that would make a bagpipe sound melodious, are demanding a formal apology for the transatlantic slave trade. One must ask: to what end?
To satisfy a modern-day craving for symbolic redress? To provide a moment of catharsis for those who have never set foot on a slave ship? The Victorians knew a thing or two about empire, but they also understood that history is a river that flows in one direction.
Apologising for it is like apologising for the weather. The real question is why our leaders, ever eager to flagellate themselves before the altar of historical guilt, continue to indulge this nonsense. Perhaps they hope that by saying 'sorry', they can conjure away the complexities of the present.
They cannot. The Commonwealth should focus on trade, on shared values, on the future. Not on a collective therapy session for crimes committed by men long dead.
If we must apologise, let us apologise for the intellectual decadence that reduces our great councils to moralising harangues.