I take it Teribus would object to anyone who had the temerity to say "It never rains but it pours".

I concede that when I said "never" I meant "hardly ever". which is in practice how we tend to use the word most of the time. "Never say never".

I freely accept that it may in fact be possible to find some rare instances of government departments backing down and apologising, since there is nothing intrinsically impossible in that happening. Teribus comes up with a case where they have admitted that a mistake has been made. Whether that involved an actual apology is another matter.

My experience is that even when it becomes impossible to avoid backing down after a mistake is made there is hardly ever (if ever) anything that amounts to an apology. "Mistakes were made" is an example of a typical formula used to avoid apologising.