SORRY. Everyone is sorry.
David Cameron is sorry. Kelvin Mackenzie is sorry. David Bernstein is sorry.
Boris Johnson is sorry.
Sir (how?) Norman Bettison is sorry. Sir (how?) Irvine Patnick is sorry.
Dominic Mohan is sorry.
Sheffield Wednesday are sorry. The Sheffield City Council is sorry.
I’m sorry.
Sorry that we live in a society that, by in large, stood by and allowed grieving families to be put through 23 years of unnecessary hurt and pain when they were right all along.
Sorry that we live in a country where so many are happy to swallow the establishment’s propaganda without question.
And sorry that Liverpool – the city, its people, the club, its fans – had its reputation dragged through the gutter for the sake of keeping up appearances among corrupt so-called public servants, many of whom are now retired, living a comfortable, care-free existence.
I am truly sorry about all that. It’s a travesty. It’s scandalous. It’s staggering that it can happen in a supposedly civilised society.
But those above – how truly sorry are they? And what exactly are they sorry for?
An avalanche of apologies arrived almost a quarter of a century late. Why? Is it because these people – these organisations – have suddenly had a moment of clarity? Have they suddenly realised the role they played in human misery; in blackening the name of dead football fans, their heartbroken families, the city they lived in and the club they supported?
Did basic human decency finally come knocking? Did commonsense finally prevail? Did compassion belatedly rear its head?
Or, is it simply because they’ve all been caught out; that the irrefutable evidence has finally been presented in the public domain?
Is it because they’ve been found out; their incompetence laid bare for all to see, their treachery and lies exposed?
Did, in fact, the alarm bells start ringing among the PR advisors when they realised that being complicit in a deep-rooted conspiracy that anyone with a heart would find disgusting, unfathomable and inhuman was perhaps not the best news for reputation?
The truth that emerged this week is the truth the Hillsborough families, the justice campaigners, fans, the people of Merseyside and supporters of Liverpool worldwide have know for a long long time.
People nationwide, in Europe, and across the world, have digested the detail of the one of the biggest cover-ups and smear campaigns in history with incredulous eyes. They’re truly staggered. And so they should be.
How could the emergency services – the people we trust, or should be able to trust, so implicitly – act in that manner?
What mindset do you have to be in to immediately start a cover-up minutes after witnessing scores of people die?
How could families be treated so coldly, so cruelly?
How could anyone test blood for alcohol or search for criminal records for a child?
And how could anyone – anywhere – ever believe a fan could urinate on, steal from and have sex with a corpse?
They’re just some of the questions on the lips of the world right now. It’s right and proper that those questions are being asked. But the world is 23 years behind.
Here, in our bubble, we just nod. We know. And we’re left wondering how to react.
We knew the statements were doctored. We knew the police lied, the ground was unsafe and there was no safety certificate.
We knew about the police cover up, the smear campaign cooked up by coppers and delivered by an MP and the morally vacuous MacKenzie.
We knew about the damage limitation exercise and we knew there wasn’t a word of truth in the report headlined so.
And we knew a miscarriage of justice had taken place and that there were huge wrongs to be righted.
So how do we deal with it now such a significant step has been made? With anger? Relief? Joy? Are we really meant to take these apologies as sincere, meaningful and anything other than the revisionist bullshit they in fact are?
Or with renewed resilience, do we now see the job out; do whatever possible to achieve the ultimate goal: justice –people behind bars and families with the full and frank details of how their loved ones died. Closure.
The answer is obvious.
In the meantime, these hollow words from despicable people count for little. MacKenzie’s apology is throwaway self-servng PR guff – a cry for mercy from a repulsive right-wing dinosaur worried about the future of his bank balance and his ‘media career’.
His feelings about Hillsborough, Liverpool and its people are well known – he’s gleefully rammed them down our throats at every opportunity.
Cameron seemed genuine. But seeming genuine is his job. The words of a Prime Minister – regardless of political party – will always carry weight. For that, at least, we should be grateful. It has pulled open the eyelids of a general public that has slept for 23 years and still squints with suspicion even when offered the true version of events of April 15, 1989.
Now that version of events is unequivocally the right one, the only one – it’s etched in stone and anyone who now says different is in the minority, liable to be ridiculed and sure to be labelled irrelevant. Now they’ll know how it feels…
Nevertheless, it’s hard not to place Cameron’s apology in the context of his comments last year when he compared the Hillsborough families to “a blind man, in a dark room, looking for a black cat that isn’t there”.
Cameron also bemoaned the fact that Andy Burnham MP was, in his eyes, garnering too much credit for the release of papers related to the disaster.
In other words, he didn’t think his own party was banking enough political capital out of the situation. Worth bearing in mind that when apologies are issued for a topic that is so clearly black and white once the evidence is presented.
All things considered, Cameron had little other option than to do what he did – ditto the rest of those now saying sorry.
In fact, so cack-handed were the attempts to say something and nothing at the same time that two of the apologies – from the FA, and from Bettison – were quickly followed by a second apology…for the apology.
It hardly gives the impression that the dam was ready to burst with emotion; that contrition was at the forefront of these minds. Rather, it screams an off-the-cuff realisation that something – anything – needed to be said to tick a box and salvage a crumb of credibility. Mission failed.
Their words mean little, but the fact they felt compelled to say them to protect their own skin means we – the families, Liverpool, campaigners, the fans – finally got underneath it.
This week was a victory for truth. Now the goal is justice. And this time the world is watching…
Justice for the 96.
Perfect. In every way.
Those complicit in causing the disaster and those complicit in the cover up and spreading the lies and smears against Liverpool people can be sure of one thing now. Michael Mansfield QC is coming to get them. Justice will prevail eventually. JFT96
The sorrys came because they had to, in order to save what little face they have left. The PM said sorry because it was right, proper and when it boils down to it, looked good for him personally.
The S*n newspaper knew 23 years ago that those stories fed to them were wrong, as shown this week in the Guardian, the Daily Mirror checked the reports out with their own reporters and decided not to go with the majority of it.
Ever since the day those stories were fed to the press, hundreds if not thousands of people have known the truth, not LFC fans, not the families but people in the government, people in the police, people in the media, yet no one of any real note did anything. Which is where the real disgrace lies.
If this came out 6 months after the disaster, fair enough the truth was found. But 23 years? 23 years, countless appeals, countless reports, countless witness statements and no one did anything. Shame on them! They can shove every “Sorry” up their ass for all I care. Its worthless and nothing more than a face saving tactic.
There will be no winners for victims of Hillsborough, no truly happy moment because that day their lives changed for the worse forever.
All we can do now is fight their corner, show them the support we have over the past 23 years and educate the country that we were wronged in all of this and hope that real justice is done in a court of law!
YNWA JTF96!
I posted on the Justice podcast making this and more of a point about this. The way forward for accountability could be very rocky.
Those apologies were carefully constructed to not admit anything that didn’t have to be and once again try to fudge the accountability issue.
Cameron specifically exonerates thatcher’s govt. Yet to ignore the howls against the lies and injustice required complicity of the highest order between the govt and the police.
There might be no smoking gun between the govt and the police, but the steely determination and prejudice of Thatcher, the Home Secretary and the cabinet made sure that the police’s account of events were not questioned in light of the protests.
This came in a decade of impunity for the police no matter what they did, an unwritten agreement – as you would expect from right wing institutions.
Cameron will breathe a sigh of relief that Thatcher’s govt is protected from criticism verging on covering up manslaughter.
Bernstein also not only fumbles the apology, but apologises only for what can no longer be ignored if he wants to keep his job.
Stadium certification which you are all jumping up and down upon was not a legal requirement for the FA to consider. It’s an easy apology.
But what you will not hear is an explanation of why Liverpool fc’s objections to the ground use were ignored. Nor an explanation for the way the ground was used, assigning the wrong end to liverpool fans.
Again, for Bernstein, a bullet dodged from another conniving corrupt official.
What’s worse is culpability may never be proven from an accountability sense – which would lead to manslaughter charges.
In any legal defence, the following arguments could easily be used.
The fa – no legal wrongdoing.
the govt – no evidence of complicity (ignoring the howls of lies and injustice will not prove complicity).
the police:
– gates opened as on the spur of the moment decisions to prevent crushing and injury outside the ground.
– the wrong gates opened was a simple mistake made in the heat of the moment made by officers on the ground not their superiors.
– questioning fans and testing victims for alcohol use: appalling but not illegal, especially if they have precedence from football hooliganism.
– ambulance service mistakes: operational confusion, must do better.
I wonder if the accountability case might fall on fallow ground with no more than a relatively insignificant scapegoat or two being hoisted up after a lengthy and expensive process.
The world will not watch this charade with interest very long. Such is life. And the politicians in govt and at the FA know this.
there has been a serious attempt to pervert the course of justice…they have to go down for that alone
brilliant gareth.
the apologies point is the one for me that is the real truth in what the families have been up against these last 23 years. 23 years of silence and only now they are forced to admit the truth after being backed into a corner by people like andy burnham, steve rotherham and the bishop of liverpool and his colleagues. lets hope the cover up can be fully exposed and the culprits be brought to justice. the apologies are just hollow words unless there is justice for the 96 and all those affected by hilsborough.
Spot on Gareth. Superb summary. A journalist career awaits …..;-)
Spotting the insincere apologies; those offered by rote, was easy once you started to note how many parroted the phrase ‘profoundly sorry’.
They couldn’t find the words themselves, so copied someone else’s.
Great piece Gareth – we written.
“Sex with a corpse”?
Not being funny here by the way, but when and where was that reported?
Good read. Coverage has been spot on, as usual, from you fellas.
Patnick the Tory MP said a policeman was trying to resuscitate a young woman with her blouse open…Liverpool fans according to Patnick said ‘ sling her down here we’ll fuck her’..it was a fabrication from a man who must have a VERY sick mind to invent it
Well put!
This is a wonderful speech, like a battle cry from a Shakespeare play. Well said and so powerful I felt ashamed and I have always believed it was all a terrible lie. Hope that all those involved never have another good night’s sleep and that the families of the 96 can at last lay down their heads and rest.
Frankly I can understand Cameron (who did appear to be genuinely shocked when making the statement) doing his utmost not to smear the greatest living Conservative. We all have our tribal loyalties.
What I found personally disappointing was Jack Straw making political capital out of the report, whilst sneaking in his “regret” – a lesser form of apology – for the fact that the Lord Justice Stuart-Smith report “failed to get to the bottom of what happened or expose the police cover-up”.
The Stuart -Smith report was, at best inept, and, at worst, part of the cover up. For 13 of the 23 years we had a Labour government who failed to take the opportunity to get to the bottom of the cover up. Is it coincidental that the Hillsborough panel was set up when it became apparent that Murdoch had fallen out with the Labour party?
A full and effective inquiry in 1998 would have spared the families years of anguish and media lies.
I’m not sure where the aggro from Cameron comes from, other than pre-existing political leanings.
The worst he’s accused of is holding the same view that the majority of the rest of the population used to hold; that the families shouldn’t be looking for a smoking gun that didn’t exist.
What annoys me more is everyone who didn’t actively lay the blame at the feet of the victims, claims to have been fighting their corner from the start. Most hadn’t… most were too apathetic to care either way, but plenty accepted some authoritarian blame but believed that there was no smoke without fire. This group included most hacks who are now busy penning revisionist articles….
Nice one Gaz
This article encapsulates everything I have felt. Completely and exactly spot on. Thank you.
So what form will acceptabe ‘justice’ take? What penalties suffered by the excreta who developed the lies, issued the lies. covered up the lies, will suffice? Do we content ourselves by pissing on Thatcher’s grave (even though it will probably be in WEstminster or St Pauls?) They will move on now, having said they are ‘sorry’.
In an episode of Porridge, Fletcher, when asked what he was inside for, said ‘Getting caught.’ That’s how sorry they are.