Apologies for Bloody Sunday – but not for everything else

The reaction in Derry and in Westminster to the publication on Tuesday of Lord Saville's report into the Bloody Sunday massacre was moving. But it engendered less welcome emotions too – such as the scary feeling that one might be plunging abruptly through a dangerous trapdoor, back into a terrible time of bitterness and conflict. Already, many people are voicing opinions that are best left unexpressed. I cringed as I read Max Hastings's comment in the Daily Mail, that: "No nation on earth possesses a talent for promoting its grievances to match that of the Irish." This, from a man who was there on the day, and who appears broadly to accept the inquiry's conclusions. Still, despite the inevitable calls for further action, and the equally inevitable complaints about scapegoating, one can hope that the truth will prove to be enough, even if its acknowledgement took 38 years. Yet, the immediate aftermath of recent, less seismic, incidents that are only distantly related to the events of 30 January 1972 – the shooting of Jean Charles de Menezes when he stumbled innocently into an anti- terrorist operation, the death of Ian Tomlinson after being struck by a police officer as he meandered through a political demonstration – suggest that agents of the British state remain markedly sceptical about the healing power of truth.