Alan Turing was an incredibly important part of the Allied war effort in World War Two. He was also gay. Because of this, he was chemically castrated following a conviction for “homosexual activity”, after which he ultimately committed suicide. Thus was the world robbed of his future innovations, and the name of an important pioneer in computer science was sullied.

The royal pardon just issued is clearly deserved, but by and large it serves only to tell us just how terrible things were at the time. What’s really warranted here for Alan Turing is a royal apology.