Oxfam is – still – struggling to learn its lesson

Oxfam’s boss has learned his lesson – or has he? In the wake of the revelations over the Haiti sex scandal, the charity’s chief executive Mark Goldring adopted the rather unwise decision to come out fighting:

‘The intensity and the ferocity of the attack makes you wonder, what did we do? We murdered babies in their cots? Certainly, the scale and the intensity of the attacks feels out of proportion to the level of culpability. I struggle to understand it.’

Three days on since that disastrous interview in the Guardian, Goldring’s struggle to understand is over. I’m sorry, he told a Commons select committee this morning, not once but repeatedly. It’s welcome news that Goldring has backed down. Yet in his apology he also fell short. Why? Because he repeated his mistake of pointing to Oxfam’s good work rather than simply holding his hands up for the wrongdoing in Haiti.