Facts

A Home Office spokesperson said that they “make no apology for trying to protect the public from serious, violent and persistent foreign national offenders.” The Home Office was referring to the deportation of individuals to Jamaica. The statement suggested that all those being deported were far more serious criminals than in reality. Many had only committed one offence. (For instance a drugs offence dating back to when they were teenagers.) Many had been in the UK since they were children. 

Verdict

The statement from the Home Office gave the impression that vulnerable people who had committed minor offences were violent and serious criminals. It was an especially offensive example of what lawyers call suggestio falsi – using words which are not direct lies but give a totally false impression. Meanwhile “We make no apology for…” has become a routine example of this technique: not apologizing for something that needs no apology but not for what actually happened.