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Life as we know it

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Not worth the truth!

November 28, 2016 in Life as we know it | Permalink

Image from Wikimedia“The worst part about being lied to is knowing you weren’t worth the truth”

Jean-Paul Sartre

The release this week of UK cabinet papers from the 1980s reveals as true something that opponents of Margaret Thatcher’s administration have long protested – that she and other leading tories had continued to plan the dismantling of the welfare state – including the privatisation of education and the National Heath Service – even in the wake of her sophistical proclamation that “the health service is safe in our hands“.

It is – of course – jejune to be shocked at the mendacity and dishonesty of politicians of all hues… a truism that has been borne out in spades this year. As far as I can recall I graduated my own education in such matters shortly after the 1979 UK general election in which Thatcher came to power. That election campaign had featured prominently the infamous Saatchi and Saatchi advert showing a long snaking queue for the dole (unemployment) office, under the banner heading “Labour isn’t Working“.

In 1979 the tories inherited an unemployed total of 1.4 million. The monetarist policies pursued by the Thatcher government saw this figure rapidly rocket to north of 3 million! It subsequently became apparent that the thinkers behind the tories’ strategy – and in particular Keith Joseph, the chief architect thereof – had known all along that their policies would indeed cause unemployment to soar… a price that they considered ‘worth’ paying.

Such hypocrisies have led me to adopt the attitude attributed to Louis Herren – foreign correspondent for The Times in the 1960s and 70s. He would ask himself – on being briefed by some politician or other – “Why is this lying bastard lying to me?“.

Good advice!

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A cautious note…

November 16, 2016 in Life as we know it | Permalink

Image from Pixabay…of optimism – if I may (though not, sadly, for the short term!).

Political events on either side of the Atlantic over the past months have left those of centre and left of centre persuasions reeling. The next few years are going to be bloody; there is no getting away from it. There is also, sadly, little that can be done to improve matters in the short term.

It is, however, time to start looking beyond this immediate grim future… and therein – I believe – will be discovered the tender shoots of optimism. By way of explication of this unlikely notion I must first needs muse a while on that oft abused ‘philosophy’ – Neoliberalism.

Neoliberalism has its roots considerable further back than the 1980s, but it was during that harsh decade that it reappeared renewed in its most virulent and corrosive form. The petrol crisis of the early 1970s that ended the long boom of the post war years led directly to the 1973/74 stock market crash and the 1974/75 recession. The years of discontent that followed unbolted the door to conservatives on both sides of the pond and they gleefully kicked it in. Carried to power on a now familiar wave of populism Thatcher and Reagan led the forces of the right on a rampage through the economies of UK and the US respectively – slashing regulation, selling off the family jewels, disposing of the unions and setting in motion the destruction of long established manufacturing industries.

So powerful was this tidal flow that in the UK the left was swept away on a tsunami of free market ideation. For a decade and a half it looked as though there would never again be a route to power for left and centre left parties. In the end the Labour party re-imagined itself (as did the Democratic Party in the US – though it had considerably less far to travel) as a party of the centre by adopting much of the ideology of the right. The much vaunted ‘third way‘ claimed to offer the benefits of both sides – the market discipline of the right with the social conscience of the left. Once the Tory Party in the UK had succumbed in its usual manner to avarice and corruption this cocktail brought New Labour victory in three successive elections.

The problem was that the ‘third way‘ was not actually a third way at all, but one of the original two ways with a slightly better user interface. In fact the centre parties on both sides of the pond had actually swallowed Neoliberalism hook, line and sinker. It may perhaps be that some thinkers on the left (and of the centre) thought that the creature could be tamed. They were to discover to their cost that it could not.

Though the true nature of the beast might have been determined from the start had anyone looked closely enough it took the financial crash of 2008 to finally bring home the repellent side effects. By opening the world to unfettered global trade (much aided by advances in technology) Neoliberalism enabled corporations and individuals to effectively detach themselves from individual nation states and thus to remove themselves from political influence and control. This trend has had many unpleasant consequences, not the least of which is that those concerned now pretty much only pay taxes when, where and to whatever level they feel inclined. This inevitably only increases the ever growing divide between the less than 1% and the rest of us.

The financial crash itself was enabled by totally inadequate regulation of the worldwide financial system; a result of decades of compromise and of paring back. This only encouraged the arrogant beliefs on the part of those immediately concerned that the credit bubble by which means growth had been ‘sustained’ into the new millennium might be extended indefinitely through sharp practice…

…which brings us smartly up to date with Brexit and the US Presidential Election. The unexpected outcomes of those ballots were not only the result of the lost millions expressing their anger at being left behind by the ever increasing inequality, but more so that those souls (along with many others who might themselves actually have done reasonably well) were left feeling utterly powerless to influence events through the democratic process, since that process itself – as a direct result of the Neoliberal agenda – was no longer able so to do. Little wonder then that when an opportunity presented itself to raise a finger (or two) to those seen as representatives or lackeys of the ‘elites’ the electorates grasped the chance with both hands.

 

Yes – I do realise that this peroration has thus far not exactly exuded optimism. Well – here’s the nub…

What has transpired this year has been a massive wake-up call. In neither the UK nor the US can politics carry on being ‘business as usual’. That model is broken. What now needs urgently to happen is that the centre and the left of centre must start over and build themselves completely afresh – learning not only from what has happened, but also from how and why it happened. This represents a huge opportunity – such perhaps as has not been presented since the end of the second world war. And – concerning that prospect – I feel optimistic.

Thinking caps on…

…flame off!

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A broken Hallelujah

November 11, 2016 in Life as we know it | Permalink

Leonard Cohen

1934 – 2016

 

Image from Pixabay

I heard there was a secret chord
That David played and it pleased the Lord
But you don’t really care for music, do you?

Well, it goes like this, the fourth, the fifth
The minor fall and the major lift
The baffled King composing Hallelujah

Hallelujah

Well, your faith was strong but you needed proof
You saw her bathing on the roof
Her beauty and the moonlight overthrew you

She tied you to her kitchen chair
She broke your throne and she cut your hair
And from your lips she drew the Hallelujah

Hallelujah

Baby, I’ve been here before
I’ve seen this room and I’ve walked this floor
I used to live alone before I knew you

I’ve seen your flag on the marble arch
But love is not a victory march
It’s a cold and it’s a broken Hallelujah

Hallelujah

Well, there was a time when you let me know
What’s really going on below
But now you never show that to me, do you?

But remember when I moved in you
And the holy dove was moving too
And every breath we drew was Hallelujah

Well, maybe there’s a god above
But all I’ve ever learned from love
Was how to shoot somebody who outdrew you

It’s not a cry that you hear at night
It’s not somebody who’s seen the light
It’s a cold and it’s a broken Hallelujah

Hallelujah

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How did we get here?

November 6, 2016 in Life as we know it | Permalink

Image from PexelsAnd you may ask yourself
What is that beautiful house?
And you may ask yourself
Where does that highway go to?
And you may ask yourself
Am I right?…Am I wrong?
And you may say to yourself
My God!…What have I done?!

“Once in a Lifetime” – David Byrne, Brian Eno, Chris Frantz, Jerry Harrison and Tina Weymouth

I have not been averse – within the bounds of these jottings – to venturing occasional comment on matters relating to current affairs. My motivation for so doing – it must be said – is usually engendered by feelings akin to horror and even despair at the manner in which at least some of the inhabitants of this fragile planet choose to conduct their (and by extension our) affairs.

I have made no comment thus far on the 2016 American Presidential Election. In common with many on this side of the border I find myself watching in fascinated horror the interminable slow-motion train wreck that has been what feels like the longest electoral contest in history. How can the observer not be rendered slack-jawed at the effect on the campaign of the extensive computer hacking by unidentified foreign agencies – or of the farcical on-again/off-again (but very public!) enquiry by the FBI into the modus operandi of one of the candidates?

In a race in which neither of the leading contenders inspires much in the way of confidence there is – amongst many to whom I have spoken here –  frank disbelief that the Republican candidate could even have qualified to stand for office – given the outrageous and frankly libelous nature of many of his pronouncements – let alone to be yet in the race for the presidency.

It does make one wonder at the hordes of apparently immutable devotees who seem so determined to deal a blow to the American political system that they could be so utterly blinded to the nature of the beast that they intend to install in the White House. It seems that no logic – no rational debate – no reasoning can get through to them. Truth is meaningless to those capable of holding contemporaneously such totally antithetical beliefs.

It is impossible not to compare the situation in the US with that in the UK, which has itself appeared over the last few years equally determined to self-harm to the greatest degree possible. I have ventured previously some horrified comments on the apparent willingness on the part of a small majority of the population to take a gigantic and unprecedented gamble on the economic and social future of the nation – again apparently based on the hazy notion of turning itself into some chimerical wishful-thinking fantasy version of the country that never was, nor ever could be.

The latest twist in this self-destructive saga came at the end of last week when the UK High Court ruled that the British Parliament should be consulted and hold a vote before Article 50 (the mechanism that would lead to Britain leaving the European Union) could be triggered. The executive had intended to put this into effect without any such consultation. This piece of democratic common sense was greeted by some of the more repellent UK newspapers with headlines such as “Enemies of the People” over images of the judges involved. The deep irony that a key feature of the Brexit campaign was supposedly the return of sovereignty to the British Parliament was utterly lost on those apparently unable to think clearly through the fog of their own rage.

Given the real tragedies that are being played out in the Middle East and elsewhere it seems wrong to fixate on the political idiocies of first world nations – however much their antics may cause us to rend our garments and tear our hair.

Bah!

Enough seriousness, though. My next post will feature photos of BC in the autumn (fall!).

Promise!

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The worst form of government

September 30, 2016 in Life as we know it | Permalink

ballot“Many forms of Government have been tried, and will be tried in this world of sin and woe. No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed, it has been said that democracy is the worst form of Government except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.”

Winston Churchill

Following the abrupt and unlooked-for result of the EU referendum in the UK at the start of the summer the British Labour Party has set about sustaining the sensation of stupefaction amongst the good inhabitants of that bewildered territory by doing its best to tear itself apart. The challenge by one hundred and seventy two members of the Parliamentary Labour Party to the stewardship of its previously unexpected leader, Jeremy Corbyn – based notionally on his perceived non-electability in a general election – reached its denouement with his re-election as leader with an increased majority of party members’ votes.

Might this be the end of the matter? Hell no!

The battle behind the scenes is not just about the party’s chances in the next general election. It concerns rather the wildly differing views of the nature of democracy itself held by the constituent members of the organisation. Fundamentally, those to the left of the party do not believe in parliamentary/representative democracy. The idea that those who are chosen to represent the electorate should be gifted power once every five years, on the basis of an agreed manifesto, is anathema to those who believe that ‘true’ democracy requires rather that power should rest continually in the hands of its party members.

To those who wish to be constantly engaged in politics this is perhaps understandable. British democracy – as in many other parts of the western world – is predicated upon a direct but limited connection between the electorate and those who represent them. Once elected the members of parliament are largely protected from interference by those who put them there – until subsequent ballots allow the electorate to issue a judgement as to how well – or how badly – they have performed. This actually suits the majority of voters well – preferring as they do not to have to think about the grubby business of politics more than is absolutely necessary.

To those on the further left such a state of affairs will not do at all. These people hold the view that the members of a political party should be able to exercise judgement on its elected representatives at any point by de-selecting them should they be deemed not to have toed the party line. Further, these zealots would like to be able to dictate policy through decisions taken by the membership at party conferences. It should be clear that this could well mean that the wider electorate could not only lose the ability to pass judgement themselves on their chosen representatives, but that they might also wake up to discover that the party for which they had voted no longer subscribed to the manifesto on which they made their choice. By such means the actuality of democracy would be re-calibrated away from the involvement of the forty six million plus who make up the total electorate toward the half a million or so who are members of the Labour party.

When it comes to the hard core – of course – there are those on the left who do not believe in party democracy either. They are playing a long game in which they believe that ultimate power rests with a smaller number of party activists who – in the longer term – can utilise a palette of well documented strategies to ensure that the motions adopted as a result of ‘democratic’ votes are those of their preference. Such devious manipulations are – naturally – to be kept at arms length from those in charge of the party, but to those of us who witnessed such methods in use during the 1970s and 1980s – be it by political parties, trade unions or even in student politics (as did I myself) – present denials that we are in fact experiencing a re-run of that period in the Labour Party’s history ring somewhat hollow.

Churchill quote was apt. He recognised the failings of the UK’s parliamentary system, but he was also right that pretty much anything else would be worse. Certainly recent experience should warn the nation away from any experiment which attempts to extend democracy by increasing the use of referenda. My view – which I have long espoused and which I have seen championed increasingly across the various media in recent weeks – is that the most effective way to improve democracy in Britain would be through electoral reform.

That the Labour Party is vehemently opposed to such a course speak volumes.

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Pandemonium!

July 21, 2016 in Life as we know it | Permalink

1280px-PandemoniumA little under four years ago the United Kingdom was picking its gingerly way through the mongrel days of the final run up to the 2012 London Olympics. It is fair to say that a great mood of cynicism – even pessimism – hung heavy in the air. The world financial crisis was at its height and it seemed somehow perverse to be spending a fortune on a festival of sport in such straightened times.

Perhaps worse, there was a very real fear that the country would wake the morning after the opening of the Olympiad to find itself the object of ridicule and derision for what many people believed was going to be – particularly by comparison with the lavish state-devised extravaganza from Beijing four years earlier – an amateurish and embarrassing debacle. On the night of the opening ceremony at least one UK journalist – submitting copy to catch the early editions before the event had started – penned a devastating critique along just such lines.

It took less than ten minutes for the great majority of those watching to change their minds utterly.

My post to this journal of the following morning included this:

As you may have deduced – I spend Friday evening watching Danny Boyle’s bizarre, amateurish (in the best sense), messy, insanely brilliant opening ceremony. I fell off the sofa laughing. I howled like a baby – at some points so hard that I could scarce catch my breath. In the kaleidoscopic whirl of layered references (oh what delight – an Olympic opening ceremony incorporating subtlety and ambiguity, whilst at the same time displaying complete self-confidence!) I repeatedly heard and saw images and ideas in the magical musical and visual smorgasbord that made me cry out, “Yes – that’s us… and that… and that…”

The gentle reader is most probably by this point scratching his (or her) head and wondering what could have triggered this brief exercise in nostalgia. The answer is – of course – the recent BBC documentary in the ‘Imagine’ strand entitled “One Night in 2012“. I am not ashamed to report that viewing this one hundred minute documentary – for which pretty much the entire creative team for the ceremony had been re-united – rendered me helpless all over again. On this occasion I was moved not only be the heart string-tugging moments from the show itself (though that did indeed happen) but by the stories of its genesis and evolution.

Confirming once again my view of Danny Boyle’s genius, we heard how the very impossibility of competing with the huge sums of money and military organisation that the Chinese had thrown at the Beijing ceremony had led to the decision being taken very early on that this show would not only be about ordinary people, but that it would feature them as the main element of the performance itself. To that end a huge army of volunteer performers was auditioned and cast as actors, dancers, musicians and stagehands.

I was touched deeply to see how the artistic team set about moulding such a vast company of amateurs with widely varying skill sets into well-drilled teams who not only put on the performance of their lives but also clearly loved every precious moment of it. The producers and directors, community choreographers, composers, drum tutors, costumers and technicians who helped to give this gift, not only to those involved in the show but also to the 80,000 in the stadium as well as to the billions watching on TV, were truly inspirational – in every sense of the word – and I doff my toque to them.

One delighted performer described how he had taken part in the show expecting to spend the evening applauding others – the athletes, dignitaries and so forth – but instead found himself part of a team that were themselves being widely and rightly lauded.

After watching the documentary I was moved once again to search out the film of the ceremony on the InterWebNet. I simply cannot get through it without dissolving. The climax of the opening Pandemonium sequence (which is, I think, exquisite in its entirety) as the newly forged Olympic rings come together above the stadium and burst into fire – leaves me gutted and gasping for breath every single time!

Kudos once again to all involved – and it still is not too late for the knighthoods!

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A day off…

July 9, 2016 in Life as we know it | Permalink

Image from PixabayThe trouble with retirement is that you never get a day off.

Abe Lemons

On July 4th last year I posted this joyous missive announcing that I had – finally – retired from the world of work. The astute amongst you (all of you, naturally!) will observe that this means that I have now been retired for a year – the first of a number of such anniversaries over the next few weeks of events from a year ago.

Last July’s celebratory post included the following observation:

The obvious question – to which I am immediately subjected – is naturally:

“How does it feel to be retired?”

The answer, of course, is that I have no idea. I left work on a Friday. It is the weekend. It could – in fact – be any weekend, except that I don’ t have to go to work next Monday.

Well – it is high time that I took another crack the question – so here goes…

The short answer is:

“It feels great!”

… followed rapidly by:

“Every day feels like Saturday!

(This is not entirely true, of course, but it is too good a line to waste.)

The longer answer, unfortunately, has a strong whiff of cliché about it and kicks off with:

“You know – looking back now I have no idea how I ever managed to fit a job in as well“

…which has become a cliché because (virtually) every retiree says it (actually – I guess that makes it a truism, but I’m sure you get the point). There is clearly something about the change of pace of life upon retirement that gives one the impression that one is busy, busy, busy – even if one is in reality patently no-where near as occupied as one was before.

Take my case for example. Until this time last year my working week comprised, on average, ten hour days. In addition I would sit in the car on the way to (or from) work for up to four hours a day. The Girl and I contrived still to enjoy a social life (though somewhat wearily at times) – I managed a modicum of creativity and we found time to eat and to sleep (though actually there was not very much sleep, truth be told!).

So how have things changed? Well – I do get to sleep more (hooray!). I also have become a reluctant gardener. We shop considerably more frequently than our erstwhile weekly dash round Waitrose. We do our own cleaning (at least for the moment).

Lest this sound all rather prosaic… I am delighted that I can finally devote serious time to creation – easily spending much of a day in the studio working on something or other. I also have the time to exert considerable amounts of energy on the planning and preparation for our new theatrical adventure. I can read more books and study more, and I am doing more exercise than I have done in many a long year. We get to spend more time with friends and, above all, I can give time to exploring this amazing place and learning how everything ticks.

I think that what I am stumbling towards saying is that the dial of work/life balance has been swung back firmly into equilibrium…

…and it feels good!

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False memory

June 10, 2016 in Life as we know it | Permalink

Image by Nheise at en.wikibooksI found myself the other day musing on the subject of false memory. I will explain momentarily why I should have been so doing, but I should first clarify that I am referring to false memories themselves and not to ‘false memory syndrome’ – which is rather different. On the latter Wikipedia offers:

False memory syndrome is a condition in which a person’s identity and interpersonal relationships center on a memory of a traumatic experience that is objectively false but that the person strongly believes. Note that the syndrome is not characterized by false memories as such. We all have inaccurate memories. Rather, the syndrome is diagnosed when the memory is so deeply ingrained that it orients the individual’s entire personality and lifestyle—disrupting other adaptive behavior.

Nothing disruptive in my case – just ‘inaccurate memories’. In a 2013 article for ‘Time‘ Tara Thean wrote:

The phenomenon of false memories is common to everybody — the party you’re certain you attended in high school, say, when you were actually home with the flu, but so many people have told you about it over the years that it’s made its way into your own memory cache. False memories can sometimes be a mere curiosity, but other times they have real implications. Innocent people have gone to jail when well-intentioned eyewitnesses testify to events that actually unfolded an entirely different way.

I have long been aware that certain memories from my very early childhood are demonstrably false. Having spent the first six years of my life in what is now very definitely a suburb of the London metropolis I am convinced that I can recall the infamous ‘pea-soupers’ – those sometime lethal London smogs. That the ‘Great Smog‘ of 1952 – as a result of which some four thousand people are thought to have died – led in the ‘Clean Air Act of 1956‘ to the banning of the burning of all but smokeless fuels within the capital, suggests that any memories that I have of such events are probably incorrect, particularly as I – born as I was in 1954 – have no other clear memories before the ages of four or five.

Much the same must apply to my ‘memory’ of having seen horse-drawn milk floats ‘when I were a nipper’! As far as I can work out they pretty much all disappeared shortly after the war to be replaced by electric floats. It may have been that there were still horse-drawn rag and bone carts when I was young, but I’m not sure why I would transmute one into the other.

The reason for my recent reverie concerns a slightly later – and in many ways more puzzling – false memory. I was watching – a few days ago – a BBC documentary on the 1966 Football World Cup. (Now – who won that? Gosh – it is so hard to recall!) The reason for the broadcast was – of course – the upcoming fiftieth anniversary of that momentous occasion.

Now – I didn’t watch the 1966 final. It would be yet a good half decade before my parents agreed that we could have a TV, though I could – of course – have watched it elsewhere. I was instead, however, otherwise engaged on the day.

My memory is that I was attending a combined boy scout/girl guide camp at a local campsite that particular weekend. The memory – in which others present were listening to the match on transistor radios – has been quite clear in my mind across the intervening years. I can even vaguely recall the celebrations when the game was won.

Except that – none of that was true! Whilst watching the documentary it quite suddenly – after all this time – occurred to me that I would have been only twelve years old that summer. Those joint scout/guide camps were – understandably in view of the the mores of the time – only for boys and girls at least three or four years older than I then was. I was obviously at some scouting event, but it clearly wasn’t that one…

Odd to think that, whereas as one grows older one expects childhood memories to become less clear, in cases such as this it is the past memory that proves to have been faulty.

Maybe there is hope for us old farts yet…

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Hillsborough

May 13, 2016 in Life as we know it | Permalink

Image by Superbfc at the English language WikipediaYou might have thought that my recent post regarding the outcome of the second inquest into the causes of the deaths of the ninety six victims of the 1989 Hillsborough disaster would be my last word on the subject. I suspect, however, that there will be yet more to come as the saga continues to unfold over the years.

This truth was brought home yet again last night in harrowing fashion as I watched Daniel Gordon’s two hour documentary – ‘Hillsborough‘ – made for the BBC and ESPN. The first version of this brilliantly judged work was completed nearly two years ago and shown in the US and – subsequently – in New Zealand. It could not at that time be shown in the UK for legal reasons; for fear that it might prejudice the outcome of the second inquest which had then just begun.

The film has now been extended in the light of the outcome of that inquiry and can now finally be seen in the UK and elsewhere. Should you yet feel uncertain as to the import of these recent events – or should you even perchance still harbour some misconceptions as to the truth of what really happened on that dreadful day and throughout the intervening twenty seven years – I urge you to take the time to watch this chilling memorial to the suffering of the families whose loved ones did not return home from that intended day of celebration.

Though I have been reading about the tragedy since the day that it happened, even so I learned things from this film that I had not previously known. This merely demonstrates anew just how much the authorities tried to keep hidden over the past two decades and more.

For example, I did not know that there had been another not dissimilar crowd control problem at an FA Cup semi-final at Hillsborough – some eight years earlier. On that occasion the crowd at the Leppings Lane end had been allowed to spill out of the stands onto the border of the pitch itself to avoid the crush. When – during the post mortem to that event – it was suggested that there had been a lucky escape and that modifications might be required to prevent future injuries or deaths, the ground’s owners and engineers dismissed the suggestion and did nothing.

Indeed – in the intervening years matters were made very much worse as a result of the FA’s misguided attempt to combat the hooliganism which seemed endemic to the game during the 1980s. The standing room terraces at the Leppings Lane end of the ground were turned into pens by the construction around them of fences of spiked iron railings. When lightening did indeed strike a second time the supporters were unable either to escape onto the pitch or sideways along the terracing as had previously been possible.

In another unfortunate circumstance the vastly experienced police superintendent, Brian Mole, who should have been in charge of the crowd control operation on the day of the disaster, was moved to another district a couple of weeks prior to the event. This followed a ‘hazing’ incident some months before in which a young police constable was one night subjected to a mock abduction by masked gunmen posing as armed robbers but who were in fact colleagues from the constabulary. Those concerned were disciplined firmly and Mole – though having no involvement himself – was moved.

His place was taken – at two weeks’ notice – by a man who not only had little experience of supervising such major events but also clearly had little understanding of football or of the habits and motivations of its followers. David Duckenfield was responsible for the two key actions that shaped the tragedy that followed and the appalling campaign that succeeded it.

First, he took the decision – when the crush of Liverpool supporters trying to get through the totally inadequate number of turnstiles at the Leppings Lane end looked to be getting out of hand – to open one of the exit gates to allow a large body of fans through to relieve the pressure outside. This was done without first having either sealed off the immediate entrance to the two already packed pens which was directly in front of the exit gate, or of ensuring that there were an adequate number of stewards or police inside the ground to direct fans to the still mostly empty pens to either side.

Then – as the inevitable tragedy was still being played out immediately beneath the windows of the control box in which he was located – Duckenfield lied to Graham Kelly (the FA representative at the ground) telling him that drunken ticket-less Liverpool supporters had broken down the very exit gate that he had himself ordered to be opened. Kelly naturally believed what he was told by the senior police official present and wasted no time passing the information on TV commentators and journalists. Thus was born the false myth that the supporters were to blame for the deaths of the ninety six, which was then seized upon by those in charge of all of the authorities concerned as a means of covering up the truth as to the multiple liabilities for the fatalities.

Daniel Gordon’s documentary is not an easy watch but it is an essential one if we are to fully comprehend this recent period in our history, for it has implications far wider simply than those for game of football or for this one appalling, tragic, but completely avoidable incident.

 

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Never walk alone

April 27, 2016 in Life as we know it | Permalink

justice-collectiveThis day – twenty seven years after the event – the second inquest into the Hillsborough disaster – having been convened after the findings of the original inquest were quashed following the report of an independent panel four years ago – finally declared that the ninety six Liverpool Football Club supporters who lost their lives on that terrible day were killed unlawfully.

Though this is far from the end of the process – the Crown Prosecution Service may now decide to commence criminal proceedings against those deemed to have been culpable – it is to be hoped that the relatives and friends of those whose lives were lost can now finally grieve them properly and that – for their sakes – a line can be drawn. The shameful treatment to which they and others were subjected throughout this outrageous miscarriage of justice must, however, never be forgotten.

It is now clear that terrible mistakes and lapses of judgement were made both on the day and beforehand by those charged with ensuring the safety of the fans attending the FA Cup semi-final between Liverpool and Nottingham Forest that was to be played at Sheffield Wednesday’s Hillsborough stadium.

Terrible as were the events of the day itself, however, what followed was in some ways even more awful. The twenty five year campaign of obfuscation and misinformation that was waged by executives of all of the key agencies – the aim of which was to draw attention away from those actually responsible for the disaster, in large part by pushing the blame on to the supporters themselves – should of itself in any just world give rise to criminal proceedings.

That these attempts at evasion found support through the active or passive collusion of other forces of the ‘establishment’ leaves a stain which may not be removed in our lifetimes. The then Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher’s press secretary – Bernard Ingham – wrote a letter to one of the Hillsborough campaigners in the mid 90s blaming the tragedy on “tanked up yobs“, a slander for which he still refuses to apologise in spite of the new inquest’s complete exoneration of the supporters’ behaviour.

The divisions in English society that have been increasingly actively fostered from the 1980s onward must surely in part be to blame for such reprehensible attitudes. As long as a monied and powerful elite – puffed up with its own sense of entitlement and residing primarily in the south east of the country – determinedly sets itself apart from humbler mortals throughout the rest of the land, the notion that the latter belong to some lesser order that can be traduced as desired will – though unspoken – continue to prevail.

It seems to me inevitable that – unless the growing inequality that blights modern society can be reversed – such travesties on the part of those in authority are likely to continue.

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