The OFFICIAL Liverpool FC thread - RIP Diogo

[Bensars]

First episode of being Liverpool released

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GuF3MRj7JJ0

[AQMP]

Some interesting points raised by Simon Jenkins in The Guardian:
==================================================

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/sep/13/hillsborough-scandal-last-23-years

My heart sank. Not another gargantuan report on another debacle in the state's guardianship of the public realm. Not hundreds more witnesses, thousands more pages and millions more pounds on lawyers, all to a chorus of righteous outrage from that proxy of postmodern democracy, the public inquiry.

Then I read the report itself, on the 1989 Hillsborough disaster. We knew the half of it. An inquest followed by two judicial inquiries had already related what happened that fatal Sheffield afternoon when 96 people died after going to a football match. This report tells us far more. It tells us what happened next: the cover-up, the lies, the botched inquiries, and the attempts to make amends. It is a grim textbook in modern British government.

The panel that produced it is described as "independent". But were the original coroner and divisional appeal judge not independent, or the inquiries by Lord Justice Taylor (1990) and Lord Justice Stuart-Smith (1998)? What of the Home Office and its boss, Jack Straw, who concluded on receiving Stuart-Smith that, "there is no basis for a further public inquiry ... for a renewed application to quash the verdict of the inquest"? And what of parliament, which agreed with him?

This new panel was set up entirely as a result of campaigning by the bereaved families. It was conducted not by a judge but by the bishop of Liverpool, helped by a diverse group of academics and journalists. It did not proceed "judicially" but by investigation. It did not hold grand hearings, like Lord Justice Leveson, with highly paid lawyers and star witnesses showing off before cameras. It dug into archives, examined documents, respected privacy, met and talked to individuals. It was exemplary.

Yet even this report pulls punches. It reveals the conduct of the South Yorkshire police but does not delve into the causes of its culture of conspiracy and deceit. It did not trespass on the apparent immunity of the police service to wider accountability. Nor did it discuss the failure of coroners, judges, politicians and home secretaries to respond to the clearly justified pleas of the victims' families. The scandal is not just what happened at Hillsborough. For its negligence and incompetence, it was an accident. The scandal is the passage of 23 years since then, which was deliberate. That clearly needs further action.

The impression of Hillsborough is of government not as a rational process but as a series of lurches between disaster and response. The country seems to have reverted to pre-parliamentary days, when the lord chancellor and judges alone ruled the land from the king's bench. It is a historic irony that this time the judges have been taught a lesson, not by anyone elected but by one of their medieval confreres, a bishop.

Inquiries are gradually lifting responsibility for errors of government from the shoulders of ministers. They anaesthetise responsibility and hand it back detoxified. Politics has found a way of shifting, delaying and diluting blame. It happened over Bloody Sunday, arms-for-Iraq, the death of David Kelly, the Potters Bar and Ladbroke Grove rail crashes, the Shipman murders, phone-hacking, childcare deaths and urban riots. It is even happening over airports.

The outcome is either no action, as government goes inert for the duration, or a later kneejerk overreaction. Every health service tragedy means an inquiry and then a torrent of Whitehall risk aversion, form filling and bureaucracy. The Soham murders led to a fifth of all adults reportedly in need of criminal record checks. The high costs (and thus high fares) of trains has been attributed to the 91 recommendations of the Hidden report on the 1988 Clapham rail crash.

The Hillsborough report should lead to a reform of coroners courts, which, like other courts, seem immune to criticism or self-discipline. That a coroner could declare "everyone dead" at 3.15 on the fatal afternoon was bizarre enough, but that a divisional court declined to overrule it was more so. Two senior judges then blinded themselves to police malpractice, as if that were a contradiction in terms. But will anything change? In Britain's adversarial justice system, there is no lobby for the truth.

Whenever these scandals erupt, those in charge always claim that "lessons have been learned" and things have moved on. Yet the same defensive arrogance as was shown by the South Yorkshire police was apparent over the deaths of Ian Tomlinson in the G20 riots in 2009, and of Mark Duggan before the 2011 riots. Control of the police service is now so centralised that it answers only to the home secretary, which means to no one. The police in England and Wales are effectively privatised to the Police Federation.

The coalition wants to meet this challenge with elected police commissioners. The ambition is commendable. Accountability for police performance must "bite" somewhere. Nor should this refer only to policy. Police lobbyists cannot demand protection for "operational decisions". What else is accountability for if not to explain the handling of Hillsborough or the riots? Whether commissioners are the way to deliver this is moot. Why cities should be forced to elect police commissioners but not mayors is a mystery. In most countries civic government, like national government, falls to an all-purpose democratic authority. Tony Blair's similar bid to "elect" his 2002 foundation hospital trusts was a fiasco of non-participation, and led to swift "producer capture", as did the Inner London Education Authority.

But any democracy is better than none. A Sheffield police commissioner would have at least some local case to answer after Hillsborough. Instead, accountability has been rendered by two judges, a bishop and a prime minister, whose "apology" for something that is nothing to do with him is meaningless.

[Bingo]

Thats a brillant piece and when the dust settles it shows what the wider and perhaps longer reaching issues are.

[brokencrossbar1]

http://councillors.liverpool.gov.uk/mgEPetitionDisplay.aspx?ID=19&RPID=4403669&HPID=4403669

Hit one of the c***ts here.

[deiseach]

Losing your knighthood seems to be a fate worse than death to the English. I'd feel the same way about receiving one

[stew]

I agree with this article except for one area:

Yet even this report pulls punches. It reveals the conduct of the South Yorkshire police but does not delve into the causes of its culture of conspiracy and deceit. It did not trespass on the apparent immunity of the police service to wider accountability. Nor did it discuss the failure of coroners, judges, politicians and home secretaries to respond to the clearly justified pleas of the victims' families. The scandal is not just what happened at Hillsborough. For its negligence and incompetence, it was an accident. The scandal is the passage of 23 years since then, which was deliberate. That clearly needs further action.

The brief that was the cornerstone of this inquiry was to determine the truth pertaining to Hilllsborough, not to pass judgement on the vermin that covered up the disaster.

To say that the report pulled punches is unfair, the report laid bare the facts and I am sure there will be some repercussions for some involved but I am equally sure some will get to walk with no sanction whatsoever, this seems to be the British govern.

Kenny Daglish, to me is a footballing genius, I did not like his second reign in charge at Anfield however he was the right man, in the right place at the right time, when this disaster happened and he was all that was good about football fans and he handled himself with class and dignity and I will forever admire him for that.

[Norf Tyrone]

Liverpool's Nogo has just scored a 4th for Liverpool U21s and took off his jersey to show '96 reasons for justice' and received a standing ovation from the Chelsea supporters.

The ref books him!

[gawa316]

Liverpool's Nogo has just scored a 4th for Liverpool U21s and took off his jersey to show '96 reasons for justice' and received a standing ovation from the Chelsea supporters.

The ref books him!

Was watching it, jeez refs do themselves no favours at time...use a wee bit of common sense now and again.

Fair play by Ngoo and well in for doing it, inspite of his art skills!!

[GalwayBayBoy]

[laoislad]

Big campaign on to get You'll Never Walk Alone to No.1 in the charts.
It's at No.18 at the moment.

[EC Unique]

ALEX FERGUSON is calling on Liverpool and Manchester fans to end all hate-filled chanting.
Sick choruses about Hillsborough and the Munich air disaster have often marred clashes between the two clubs, who meet again at Anfield next Sunday.

Now, in a week when the findings of the Hillsborough inquiry panel were made public, Ferguson has appealed for peace between the rival supporters.

The United boss said: "Both clubs have suffered tremendous fatalities through football and you would hope that this is the line in the sand in terms of how supporters behave towards one another.

"Certainly, the reputation of both clubs doesn't deserve that. You hope fans do behave themselves, support their team and that would be the end of it. We will see.

"I think what will happen for that Liverpool game is fans will be on their best behaviour.

"I think it's a moment for these two great clubs to show why they're two great clubs. I don't anticipate any problems.

"There are always opportunities to show your greatness and I think this is another one."

Ferguson cast his mind back yesterday to the dark days of the 80s.

He said: "The thing that sticks out in my mind at that time was those fences around stadiums.

"They were put up to avoid fans going on to the pitch but it turned out they cost people their lives. I think that they contributed to what happened at Hillsborough."

Lets hope he is right and next weekend goes well..

[laoislad]

Hope there are no beach balls hanging around Sunderland today.

[laoislad]

YNWA #1 in the iTunes chart now.

[Minder]

Arsenal fans will sing "You'll Never Walk Alone" at 3:06 PM (during Arsenal-Southampton) in memory of the 96 Hillsborough victims.

[laoislad]

@Now__Football: Apparently, some Man United fans were chanting "Always the victim, it's never your fault" (relating to Hillsborough) -  Absolutely terrible