At last we’ve apologised for Hiroshima – well, sort of. We’ve recognised the suffering our atom bombs caused –well, kind of. President Obama was showing off his anti-nuclear credentials in the killing grounds of Hiroshima, but this was not to be confused with saying sorry.

The presence of John Roos, the US ambassador to Japan, and the British deputy ambassador, David Fitton, at the site of the world's first atomic bombing was an odd appearance.

We are looking at the survivors' ceremony and recognising their suffering – how very Blairite of us – and even the British embassy's words were of Blairite insincerity. "This is the right move at the right time," it said. But the right 'move' for what? After all, we are really not apologising for the 220,000 dead of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Hell, didn't we win the Second World War?

What it really comes down to is this. If you apologise for slaughtering civilians – or, at the minimum, causing their deaths – you have to do it quickly and for humanitarian reasons. Wait too long and do it for political reasons, and it will lose its effect. Germany was quick to start admitting responsibility for the Jewish Holocaust and now calls itself Israel's best friend in Europe. Turkey has never apologised for committing the Armenian Holocaust in 1915. But if it ever does, will anyone except the Armenians care?

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