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.
How many years will it take before Blair et al are exposed for their crimes against humanity, crimes against peace, and crimes of aggression?
Will the media that cheered on the wars issue apologies too?
“Government conspiracies … happen more often than you think.”
Just not big ones like 9/11, huh?
“The enemy within”
“The Enemy within: Thatcher’s Secret War Against the Miners
Author: Seumas Milne”
“Product Description”
“Margaret Thatcher branded Arthur Scargill and the other leaders of the 1984-5 miners’ strike ;’the enemy within’. With the publication of this bestselling book a decade later, the full irony of that accusation became clear. There was an enemy within. But it was not the National Union of Mineworkers that was out to subvert liberty. It was the secret services of the British state – operating inside the NUM itself. Seumas Milne revealed for the first time the astonishing lengths to which the government and its intelligence machine were prepared to go to destry the power of Britain’s miners’ union. Using phoney bank deposits, staged cash drops, forged documents, agents provocateurs and unrelenting surveillance, MI5 and police Special Branch set out to discredit Scargill and other miners’ leaders. Planted tales of corruption were seized on by the media and both Tory and Labour politicians in what became an unprecedentedly savage smear campaign. In this new edition, published for the twentieth anniversary of Britain’s most important postwar social confrontation, new material brings the story up to date – and, in the wake of the Iraq war intelligence scandals, highlights the continuing threat posed by the security services to democracy today.”
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Enemy-within-Thatchers-Secret-Against/dp/1844675084
@ Craig,
You said:-
” Government conspiracies do indeed happen. They happen more often than you think.”
And 9/11?
So which conspiracies do happen? Clearly only those which are rubber stamped by the Guardian. But not the mysterious death of David Kelly, on which the Guardian spent much energy burying.
@ Jimmy Giro
‘They should gather all the ‘politically’ appointed lords, and have like a prisoner exchange, whereby the Tories and the Marxists each strip off their ‘honours’ quid pro quo.’
They could set the proceedings to music like the country dance Strip the Willow.
~~~~
Further on Greg Barker.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/9540531/Minister-Greg-Barker-approved-5-million-for-company-linked-to-adviser.html
More in the style of Fox/Werritty but without the treasonous aspects.
Barker has little Chloe Smith in his department now since her appalling performance as Treasury Minister. How green will she be? Probably not at all if she follows the example of her superiors. She is a CFoI btw.
Barker worked for Abramovich at one stage. Wikipedia have his wealth at £3.9m
Sorry O/T but important. Complaint to the BBC about a lie told on The World At One.
Israel-Palestine: BBC responds to complaint about The World At One in connection with the death of Rachel Corrie.
http://members5.boardhost.com/medialens/msg/1347601579.html
The BBC’s weasel words here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/complaints/complaint/watocorrie2808212/
Got me thinking about phiranha fish mans comparison to some of natures greatest creatures.
Mans image of jesus he would always find a peaceful solution.
Our ruling clique . Just alot of sharp teeth
Seriously religious or not Jesus would talk.
Apologies for interrupting the thread but I’ve not seen the mainstream press write anything on this yet. Adnan Latif, poet, peace-person and prisoner in Guantanamo Bay has died there.
http://www.lawfareblog.com/2012/09/breaking-news-dead-guantanamo-detainee-is-adnan-latif/
The Huff Post has written on it but I cannot after a cursory Google find links to mainstream articles. Let it not be forgotten that Theresa May is fighting to get Babar Ahmad and Tahla Ahsan extradited to a US penal institution, despite no charges being brought against them. They have been in prison without charge for more than eight and six years respectively. Ahmad has been badly beaten by police but my country is becoming just as bad as its master the United States of America.
@Jon Goss
Here is an article (from 2007) about Latif which includes a snippet of his poetry.
http://humanrights.ucdavis.edu/projects/the-guantanamo-testimonials-project/testimonies/prisoner-testimonies/poems-from-guantanamo
“Football terraces were nothing if not a display of community solidarity between working people.”
Blimey. Did you get to many games in the 80’s?
I didn’t, basically because my father refused to take me as a child having been to a few games himself.
O/T
The power of the Royal family to block the internet?
The french magazine CLOSER has apparently got pictures of Kate Middleton topless on holiday in France.
Go to Closer magazine uk website – does not activate.
Go to Closer magazine Fr wesite – La page web n’est pas disponible!
Thanks Phil. I notice that the snippet of his poetry was only what the Guantanamo military would allow. But the lines quoted are powerful enough:
Tahla Ahsan, the UK prisoner wanted by the Americans to rot in one of their prisons, is also a poet. Furthermore he suffers from Asperger’s Syndrome. Are we living in a nightmare, or what?
O/T: China sends six ships to Japanese Islands:
http://www.aljazeera.com/news/asia-pacific/2012/09/201291445921803663.html
Paul B
I don’t think I missed a Norwich home game for years in the 70s, and went to two Wembley finals with them.
Norwich vs Westham, at home. Are you up for a pint afterwards Craig? or are you watching from home?
Is everybody here from Norfolk??
Letters to the Independent.
http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/letters/letters-despite-hillsborough-police-coverups-go-on-8135757.html
“Is everybody here from Norfolk??”
I’m not 😉
Craig, thank you for your perspective and mammoth reading on this subject.
YNWA
The Hillsborough tragedy and subsequent cover-up is not solely a case of police rotten apples tainting the barrel. The barrel included rotten apples like Mrs Thatcher; Douglas Hurd and other Ministers; Whitehall officials; senior police officers; the Judiciary; the Coroner; the Media. It appears that all these people and groups have conspired to pervert the course of justice to protect the state or their own interests. Hillsborough shines a light through the flimsy facade that is presented as democracy in Britain where the state can be held to account.
We know what went wrong at Hillsborough; we know there was a cover-up; we know there was a conspiracy to pervert the course of justice. However we also know that no one (other than minor scapegoats) will be held to account in a criminal court.
Only a new, independent, public inquiry with judicial powers can hold ‘the powers that be’ to account over Hillsborough and prevent any remaining questions being swept under the carpet. But, as we also know, such an inquiry would not be granted by the state unless it could control the outcome.
@doug scorgie 14 Sep, 2012 – 9:52 am
More like the power of royal melons to attract a high number of visitors that the server cannot handle.
Intrigued by your question and knowing a little about networks I thought I would take a look. The page is available. Though I have no idea why you might want to look.
And no, I didn’t click through past the first head and shoulders.
‘Is everyone here from Norfolk’ what sort of question is that? what does it matter, I could be from Suffolk and support Norwich City, it was just a friendly question zoologist.
Mary, good letters. From the first:
“Look at the cheerful dissemination of the untruths told by the police about Harry Stanley, Jean Charles de Menezes, Ian Tomlinson, Mark Duggan and countless others.”
And from this policeman in the Telegraph John
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/letters/9541828/Examination-of-the-Hillsborough-evidence-should-lead-to-prosecutions.html
I notice that Alastair Russell has his letter on Libya below the Hillsborough letters in both the Telegraph and the Independent, edited in the Telegraph. Are Dingwall and Knockfarrel one and the same places?
Hillsborough: Police chief considers IPCC move
The police watchdog may be asked whether officers involved in the Hillsborough disaster should face manslaughter investigations.
The Chief Constable of South Yorkshire Police, David Crompton, said the force was looking into a number of issues to refer to the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC).
An independent report into the tragedy found police tried to blame Liverpool fans for the crush on 15 April 1989.
The IPCC is reviewing the report.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-19598228#
Mary,
Yes, as good as, although some residents of Ross-shire would probably disagree. Knockfarrel is a beautiful little spot on the edge of Dingwall.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2012/sep/14/sir-norman-bettison-hillsborough-comments
At least I wasn’t the only person shocked by his comments yesterday. Be gone you toad of a man.
Nevermind: ‘Is everyone here from Norfolk’ what sort of question is that?
It was a friendly one too .. I live about 100 yds from Carrow Road.
Didn’t mean to pry ..
CE Thanks for that info on Dingwall and Knockfarrel.
So with the end of the News of the World connected to phone-hacking of Milly Dowler and hundreds of celebs; will the actual truth about Hillsborough now force The Sun to close its doors because of the sick and twisted corruption that lay at the heart between the police and the Thatcher administration and The Suns editors?!?
I for one hope so! I wonder if the apology from David Cameron was in earnest because he knows he’s the next one to be tagged as the most corrupt Tory politician next to Thatcher. Perhaps, its time he come clean before we unearth the truth about the dodgy deals connected with the Lockerbie bombing, the Hunt/Murdoch BSkyB fiasco, and of course he will not be alone because Tony Blair will also have to face the music relating to War Crimes against the people of Iraq and Afghanistan; and the many hundreds of brave men and women who have come back home from these illegal wars in a coffin.