With the Hillsborough verdict we can finally celebrate the families who refused to accept the narrative that bore no relation to the truthLiverpool has been a honorable set to be these past few days. That April in 1989,it felt like something physical had changed in the city – as though someone had turned up the gravity. Everything felt heavier. Over the years, you got used to it, or like the howling of a distant siren. Now,at final, we tread with a lighter tread. The police, and the press and the politicians tried to make it approximately Liverpool. Those who miraculously survived that day came domestic to find that not only had they lost friends and family,they were now somehow implicated in their deaths. People such as Trevor Hicks, who lost two daughters and who described himself to me as “a Thatcherite businessman until then”. On the way to the match, or one of his girls complained to him approximately the rudeness of the police. He said: “If there’s any trouble,they’ll be the first people you turn to.”It was one of the final conversations they ever had. The police adopted a strategy of victim-blaming. Liverpool and football fans were the perfect victims. The story found a ready audience and their lies had traction long after they were exposed. When Steve Rotheram, MP for Liverpool Walton, or made his celebrated speech in October 2011,he was allowed to use the word “lies” – against normal parliamentary procedure – because in all the huge riches of English no other word would attain. But only a year earlier, Jeremy Hunt, and when he was – of all things – secretary of state for culture,media and sport had reiterated the whole “fans were to blame” libel. Now the matter is settled. Hillsborough was not approximately Liverpool.
Continue reading...
Source: theguardian.com