Hillsborough, justice, and vilification of the working class

Justice has finally come for the Hillsborough relatives; late, and after too much unnecessary pain being heaped on them, too many obstacles put in their way, too much opposition from establishment organisations – the police, the media, political spin doctors - putting their own weasely backsides before the truth.  But finally the truth is being told.  

There is so much detail to look at, but there are few passages that better sum up the horror of what the establishment did to citizens it had disdain for than this:


"While the tabloid screamed that "the truth" was fans pickpocketing victims and urinating on cops, the real truth was the police probing victims' criminal records and taking blood samples from dead children in the hope of establishing drunkenness."


Take a while to let that sink in.  

It’s not my purpose here to go through the details, for that there are better places to look, such as the excellent work done by Eleanor Barlow, here outlining the way the myths were busted by the inquiry: “The Hillsborough myths exposed by the inquests as a tissue of lies”.  Please take the time to read it. 

As we take in what has been uncovered here, what people are more and more coming to terms with is the fact that time after time, the police and the media have been involved in cover-up and lies. Someone dies, so the reaction of the police is to lie about the victim.  

Take Jean Charles de Menezes.    Instead of owning up to their failings, the police lied about what had happened and lied about the character of the victim.  The inquest jury in December 2008 rejected the official account of events, but was told it did not have the option to return a verdict of unlawful killing.  

Take Ian Tomlison, where the police followed that same pattern of cover-up and assassinating the character of the victim. (http://www.iantomlinsonfamilycampaign.org.uk).

Take Orgreave, where the BBC and the police colluded in telling lies about striking miners.  (http://otjc.org.uk)  - The BBC, it much later turned out, was then, and is still, a member of the CBI.  During every industrial dispute it covered, and in which it broadcast quotes from the CBI, it never once declared an interest.

The list could go on.  But what we get a picture of is of the resources at the disposal of the elite, the state, weighed against ordinary people.

For the relatives of the 96 Hillsborough victims, this has been a tough 27 years.  They have borne it with dignity, dedication and tenacity, while they, their loved ones, their fellow football fans, their city, has been heaped with vilification and ridicule.  The open class prejudice with which the media has portrayed Liverpudlians has been overwhelming.  Comedians play the stereotypes for cheap laughs.  Politicians, such as Boris Johnson, join in.  But it’s not funny: what is at the bottom of this is cover-up and smear, and the disdain that the establishment has for working class people.

Remember that lesson when you read media reports of strikes, when you read about the supposed character of someone who has died at the hands of the police, or about the character of people who are on low wages or out of work.  

The Hillsborough Justice Campaign