It is plain that Home Office officials had a very good, immediate understanding of the causes of the Hillsborough Disaster. Having spent twelve hours reading through the documents released, and drawing on my experience as a senior civil servant, for me the key document is the briefing for the Home Secretary’s statement to the House of Commons two days after the disaster.
On pages 16 and 17 of this PDF, are some of the the “supplementaries” which civil servants prepare (indexed answers replying to possible follow-up questions which MPs may ask in debate). Here a civil servant has prepared for the Home Secretary answers on whether the Hillsborough Ground complied with the “Guide on Safety at Sports Grounds”. His answers include these:
3. Does the ground comply with the guide?
(A) Entry turnstiles – appears unlikely
(B) Rate of Entry with Route – Not when gate opened, well overloaded
(C) Stewards/Police – Not clear yet whether numbers and dispersal adequate
(D) Entry to Terrace from Route – Need to see plans – Appears there were no control barriers
(E) Radial/Lateral Gangways – Need to see plans – Film indicated that these were not defined or kept clear
(F) Crash Barriers – Engineer’s statement that they were tested and complied for strength
(G) Pitch Perimeter Fence – From film it appears that emergency gates are rather narrow and limited in number
So just two days after the disaster, and one day after Thatcher’s and Hurd’s visit to the site, there was a full understanding of the actual causes of the disaster. There is no mention of hooliganism or crowd violence or alcohol in the Civil Servant’s briefing. But – exactly as the Murdoch media’s campaign of demonisation of the Liverpool fans was getting into full swing – Douglas Hurd has put his pen through all the above list of causes and written “Matters for the Inquiry”. Not to be told to Parliament.
So the government knew the truth, but decided to suppress it while the media vilifaction flew, pending the “Taylor Inquiry” which is unanimously now accepted to have been badly skewed.
Yet Hurd’s meeting with Taylor on 26 April 1989 lifts the lid on how “independent” these “judge-led” inquiries really are, with Hurd telling Taylor not just what the government would like him to say but precisely when it would be helpful to the government for him to say it.
If you read that minute through, you will see that Hurd shows no interest at all in the question of what happened at Hillsborough. This is only mentioned by Taylor, three quarters of the way through the meeting, which is overwhelmingly about Hurd steering Taylor to support the government’s position on compulsory membership cards for football clubs.
Justice for the victims of Hillsborough was plainly nowhere on Hurd’s list of priorities.
Anyone who lived through the Thatcher years will never forget her demonisation of “The enemy within”. My belief is that you cannot understand the government cover-up of Hillsborough without putting it in the context of Thatcher’s successful drive to remodel society on neo-conservative lines by economic deregulation and making the country fit for banker capitalists to become incredibly rich.
There is to me a psychological connection between the terrible, bitter and eminently avoidable confrontation with the miners, the poll tax, and the attitude to Hillsborough of Thatcher, Hurd and Murdoch. Football terraces were nothing if not a display of community solidarity between working people. Furthermore the police were used in paramilitary fashion by Thatcher against the miners and poll tax rioters: of course they would be supported as in the right at Hillsborough.
None of which helps the bereaved, and in many ways yesterday’s assertion that almost half the victims had some potential to be saved given a better police and emergency response must be just awful for them. I cannot fully imagine how they feel, though of course I am pleased that the shadow of official blame has been lifted.
But I also hope strongly that the undoubted evidence of co-ordinated cover-up and massive doctoring of documents helps people come to an understanding that government cannot be trusted. The lies about ticketless Liverpool fans leaping turnstiles reminded me of the lie about Jean Charles De Menezes leaping a turnstile – a lie also propounded by the Police and Murdoch.
Government conspiracies do indeed happen. They happen more often than you think.
That revolting Straw has been passing the buck on to Margaret Thatcher who he says was grateful for what they did for her in the miners’ strike etc. Tebbitt and Mellor have called him silly.
Hillsborough: Straw blames Thatcher for police ‘impunity’
Ninety-six Liverpool football fans died after a crush at Sheffield Wednesday’s ground on 15 April 1989
Continue reading the main story
Hillsborough papers
Key excerpts
Key findings
Power of documentary evidence
Why release of papers matters
Ex-Home Secretary Jack Straw has said Margaret Thatcher’s government created a “culture of impunity” in the police that led to the Hillsborough cover-up.
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/..
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-19584313
Although I agree he is guilt of doing little also, I have to agree with him insomuch as Thatcher did owe the police over their political led destruction of the miners http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2012/apr/12/hillsborough-battle-orgreave
and crocodile tears from the editor of the Sun which I happened to see in a coffee shop this morning. Kelvin McKenzie was the editor at the time of the tragedy. No words.
http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/sun_says/4508014/The-Sun-says-We-are-sorry-for-our-gravest-error.html
{http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2012/sep/12/hillsborough-disaster-mackenzie-profuse-apologies-sun}
Yes, like a stopped clock even Straw is right sometimes. Of course he and the Blair government then completed Thatcher’s work of handing the entire country to the super-capitalists.
This was not only the police it was the Yorkshire Police. I was a pup press photographer in Sheffield at the time of the miners strike. My first night out on the picket lines I saw the deputy chief constable, unprovoked, assault a NUM official as the signal for all hell to break loose. The police held the town to siege. The following day all the papers reported the miners had kicked off. That night changed my life.
I am amazed and inpressed that Craig had the stamina and the eyesight to read for twelve hours.
Does anyone think that Grieve will accede to the demand for new inquests?
Craig:
May I suggest you read :
Gladio:Nato’s dagger at the heart of Europe’
The Pentagon-Nazi-Mafia
Great post Craig. The level of corruption on scale is truly shocking.
(Sir) Norman Bettison is still repeating the same old lies;
Taylor was right in saying that the disaster was caused, mainly, through a lack of police control. Fans’ behaviour, to the extent that it was relevant at all, made the job of the police, in the crush outside Leppings Lane turnstiles, harder than it needed to be. But it didn’t cause the disaster any more than the sunny day that encouraged people to linger outside the stadium as kick off approached.
I held those views then, I hold them now. I have never, since hearing the Taylor evidence unfold, offered any other interpretation in public or private.
http://www.westyorkshire.police.uk/news/hillsborough-report
I hope every police officer involved is investigated for perverting the course of justice.
Since we’re quick enough to castigate and criticise politicians, we should also praise them if for their hard work and dedication if it is shown. On that note Andy Burnham should receive high praise indeed, it could be argued without some his tenacious effort the truth could have remained buried.
Coming from a long list of miners on my father’s side I marched with the miners. I marched too on Hyde Park with the countless busloads who opposed Blair’s war. By that time I realised that they do just what they want. It is good to see that the Hillsborough bereaved have got some kind of closure, though their loved ones can never be brought back. It is good too to see that it is possible to overturn government and media fomented propaganda. What is not good is the IPPC which is toothless and hardly ever finds against the Police, examples cited in the post. But perhaps something will be done after this.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/police-chief-sir-norman-bettison-has-nothing-to-hide-over-hillsborough-following-calls-to-quit-8134763.html
Excellent post, Craig.
This all brings back the horrible 1980s, which simply have continued.
And so, we see now the full panoply of systemised mendacity which the ruling structures deployed in relation to an event with domestic political significance, to be sure, but no international political or war-related dimension. Imagine, then, to what lengths the ruling structures would go – as was the case in relation to the illegal invasion nd destruction of Iraq – when such perceived global strategic imperatives pertain.
They lied to us about Hillsborough, they lied to us about Iraq. No-one is in gaol for thse lies and the deaths they caused or covered-up. that i another, added, crime.
In other words, in the case of Hillsborough, the ‘conspiracy theorists’ were absolutely correct. The government and ruling cadres conspired for many years to distort the evidence and convey a total lie to the people.
My 100% solidarity with the people of Liverpool.
“Football terraces were nothing if not a display of community solidarity between working people”.
Shurely shome mishtake here? Aren’t they more, well, a place from which to watch football?
Craig,
Also on p18 there is more evidence the government knew exactly what had happened that Hurd decided to bury as a ‘matter for the enquiry’
6. Could the opening of the gate have affected the situation?
The opening of the gate allowed a greatly increased flow
rate to the route . This would place the entire route and the entrance to the terrace under great pressure and disrupted smooth dispersal of the crowd.
It would also prevent any control of the numbers allowed on to the terrace.
The same gate that Chief Superintendent David Duckenfield had falsily accused the Liverpool fans of tearing down and the government did nothing to correct him.
Yet The Taylor Inquiry found no fault with Liverpool supporters. The police had claimed the crush in the Leppings Lane end was caused after fans stormed a gate outside the ground. This was later exposed by Lord Justice Stuart-Smith as a “disgraceful lie”. Lies Norman Bettison is still spreading.
Nice piece, I commented on the Guardian about this but my comments are in pre-mod mode. I rather like it acutely, I hate to be ‘accepted’ by them.
I mean it’s obvious they would have known stuff also yea?
Anyhow someone brought up Diana, saying something in the sprite of how not all conspiracies are true, but some are as this illustrates. I remarked that was also very convenient timing considering the other news that it totally overshadowed. I know nothing, but yea, that news was important also, and it still has not been covered in any meaningful way IMO.
I think the problem is we are not persistent enough, it’s simply not good enough to have the victim’s be the ones who always pay double when they get no support from the establishment. Because no support is in fact suppression. It’s up to us as people, as a society to bring real truth’s to bear, and I feel your doing a great job Craig, a real trail blazer for getting a deeper picture.
Maybe we should be the MI5, we are clearly the ones fighting for the good of society and protecting the nation, or trying to. The MI4th estate, by the people for the people…
It’s the self-serving inertia of all bureaucracies. Unlike a business, which performs according to its products and the market for those products, the bureaucracy has only its ‘credibility’ to sell to the rate payer. It has to be unyielding, even to reality, because one slip such as an admission of guilt, results in the collapse of that ‘house of cards’.
A big problem is when we name names, for these individuals are no doubt scoundrels, but if we are not careful, the scoundrels act as ‘scape goats’ to the continuing problem of the bureaucracy itself.
For example, if we blame Hitler and his gang for National Socialism, then we inadvertently shield the culpable German ethos, and its people, from deserved blame; as tyrants cannot act in a vacuum.
Bureaucrats are human too, therefore this is a malaise of humanity itself, a reflection of our general culture, and therefore a symptom of its subversion.
Yes, blame and name the Tories who were in position to act at the time, but chose to cover-up; then blame the socialists, who acted to destroy our culture through subversion, so that they could win a Marxist-State.
Subversion corrupts the morality of everybody, for it undermines the very ethos of our humanity, expressed in our culture and the ethics of that cultures laws.
And how many new laws have we had thrown at us, just to maintain the self-serving bureaucracies, over the last few decades? Laws demanded by the neurotic, who have been purposefully ‘wound-up’ by the subverters, and ultimately play into the game plan of the totalitarian bureaucracies.
The solution is for the people to grow some balls; to tell the moral relativists and their political corections, to fuck off [if it’s OK by them… nothing personal… love and kisses… blah blah blah.]; to repeal most new laws, and not demand new laws to solve the problems brought about by previous laws. We need to regain our sense of personal morality through social interaction, rather than ‘social’ morality through legal prescription.
This enormity of this relevation will profoundly change the way people regard the rulling establishment and the police. it will have a similar effect to the slow realisation that Blair led the country into an illegal war by lies and deceit.
With a fair wind I can see only good coming out of what will be an awakening of people to what is really going on.
Then they will vote accordingly.
Happened already in Scotland, England’s next
Right then that’s that sorted.
@Clydebuilt – no. I suspect if it becomes clear there was a substantial cover-up at all levels, then people’s cognitive dissonance will in general protect them from extrapolating that governments don’t always have good intentions in mind.
http://www.channel4.com/news/hillsborough-five-unanswered-questions
Thank you Craig. You mention the inquest into the death of Jean Charles de Menezes. I would like to post a letter I sent to five lawyers prior to that inquest regarding the pathologist. I am sure it is not libel because it is all a matter of record.
It will help show how the system treats truth with utter disdain by silence. You might wish to read it first of course.
You might know that I am one of a few doctors who have pleaded for an inquest into the unnatural death of Dr David Kelly. I am at present testing the probity of the General Medical Council in response to complaints I have made.
David,
Of course I know who you are; you are certainly welcome to post.
And Baron Hurd says….
This is the actual speech that Douglas Hurd made in 1989, the draft of which Craig links to.
http://www.theyworkforyou.com/debates/?id=1989-04-17a.19.0&s=hillsborough+speaker%3A17875#g19.1
The second biggest cover-up in British legal history, Hillsborough, seems to have started on 25 April 1989 when Home Secretary Douglas Hurd told Sir Peter Taylor “not just what the government would like him to say but precisely when it would be helpful to the government for him to say it.”
The biggest cover-up, Lockerbie, was hatched jointly by Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan in the interregnum between the 8 November 1988 US presidential election and President Bush Snr taking over from Reagan on 20 January 1989 (http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=1660118217040&l=314e4520ce).
On the face of it, Prime Minister David Cameron has been admirably forthright about the Hillsborough cover-up, although I’m left wondering what bad news the PM was trying to bury in making the statement to Parliament on 12 September 2012.
In contrast, Cameron has a great deal to hide over the Lockerbie cover-up so, unless it’s dragged out of him, there won’t be any prime ministerial statements about Pan Am Flight 103 of 21 December 1988 (http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=1793459390486&l=c14f1ea35c)!
@JimmyGiro 13 Sep, 2012 – 2:08 pm
“For example, if we blame Hitler and his gang for National Socialism, then we inadvertently shield the culpable German ethos, and its people, from deserved blame; as tyrants cannot act in a vacuum.”
I agree, the tyrants cannot be held solely responsible. The people are culpable. However, in what way culpable depends on what you mean by a vacuum.
It is not that the majority of Germans were natural Nazis. Many allied soldiers, as they rolled through Germany, were amazed “They’re just like us”.
The people who “don’t do politics”, those who unquestionably believe the establishment line are the culpable. This is the ethos that enables tyrants. It is also the ethos that allows democratic states to behave so badly.
The Nazis employed propaganda techniques innovated by the US in WW1 and used to this day to sell us stuff we don’t need. Goebbels studied Edward Bernays. Bernays coined the phrase PR because to use propaganda would have been an unacceptable truth. Bernays openly admitted that PR is a tool to control the stupid masses. See his book “Propaganda”.
As for your faith in business. Don’t forget Hitler would not have succeeded without being bankrolled by big business. Many remain household names today (Krupps, IG Farben, AEG). The stamp of Seimens is on the gas chambers at Aushwizt.
@JimmyGiro
Mussolini defined facism as the merger between big business and the state. Although, he did often say stuff he never really meant. But still, an interesting definition.
@ Phil,
I agree.
I hope that every policeman who has perverted the course of justice is punished, not just investigated.
Why should this stop at investigating? when the force of the law is unable to enforce the law within its own organisation.
Retired since then? tough, you are still responsible for the death of all these people, why should this be forgotten after all this time?
Did we forgive Briggs his crime?
@Patrick Haseldine 3:24pm
Many thanks for the link which shows the Americans were actually on the right track in the early summer of 1990 in suspecting Iran (and Syria?) of involvment in the PA103 sabotage.
Of course, once Iraq invaded Kuwait, the Libyans held out against joining Bush Snr’s coalition, Syria agreed to help the West while the Iranians just kept a low profile. Naturally Gaddafi stood out like a sore thumb and had to be punished…
“Happened already in Scotland, England’s next
Right then that’s that sorted.”
I like your positive tone.
It did make me think i’m more happy that people are building up a real picture of society. Not to vote necessary but to notice, nobody is going to help those who don’t themselves, and as a society we are mind numbingly de-politicised and not involved in our community’s in many (very few) productive ways.
People sit back, slag off the government, watch football. And maybe vote sometimes. Big deal. I don’t know that I can blame people for there ignorance as it’s in us all, And I know from personal experience how difficult it is to get anywhere in the establishment if you show and real good qualities. But i’m thinking it does not matter, it is up to us to build this solidarity somehow and give it political meaning.
What’s clear is we need something more than a vote, we need to help build this, all this stuff, into some kind of hub. it’s not like many of us disagree on the fundamentals but it needs condensing into a voice that’s heard.
It’s hard for me to say but I will. As a creative person I’v always had issue with people who seem to identify much of there being as a supporters of football. I think there being used. Though it was nice to see there dignified response so far (and I hope it continues to temper the obvious justified anger) I feel as a community there one of the most base instinct groups in the country, and proud of it.
When will they get it’s just football, they don’t have to ostracise those in the community who are working for these injustices not to happen. It’s classic group think mentality i’m afraid, and part of the real lack of development in our society.
How many ‘mad for football’ supporters are there, how difficult would it have been? Surly enough did know exactly what was going on here?
Not all but many actively embrace squashing anything alternative happening in society. Support the team as the country. So harmful it’s hardly worth it for a game, one all sense of real sport has disappeared from long ago.
Like it or not being sensitive is what prevents this kind of stuff. Yet alternative people are (i’m willing to bet in many communities) kept isolated by the base attitude many of these people do have.
I tell you what, though i’v got a lot of sympathy for the victim’s this is going to make me stand a little taller now in the face of status quo in many places. I’ll probably get the shit beaten out of me again at some point anyway as you can’t even be yourself without exposing there total insecurity, and we know they can’t take that.
@Colin Carr 3.50 p.m. That’s a bit of a distraction. What Patrick Haseltine’s link was actually showing, as I understand it, was how a Minister of Namibia was the most high profile passenger on flight 103, and was about to reveal what was happening in Namibia with De Vere’s exploitation of its diamond wealth, and how David Cameron was involved in Thatcher and Reagan’s cover up which pointed the blame at Libya.