Heartland

Posted: **12 Dec 2006, 18:30**

i feel sick after this.

This is an article taken from the Liverpool Daily Post, apparently.. i got it from the TES forum

This is an article taken from the Liverpool Daily Post:

"I was right on Hillsborough Dec 1 2006"

Exclusive By Sam Lister Daily Post Staff

FORMER Sun editor Kelvin MacKenzie yesterday revealed "I was not sorry then and I'm not sorry now" for the paper's infamous coverage of the Hillsborough disaster.

Speaking at a business lunch, he told more than 100 guests he had only apologised to the people of Liverpool because the newspaper's owner Rupert Murdoch had ordered him to.

And he insisted the Sun had only been reporting "the truth" when it accused Liverpool fans caught in the terrace crush of urinating on the dead and stealing from bodies. Mr MacKenzie was guest speaker at the annual lunch of Newcastle law firm Mincoffs LLP.

A source told the Daily Post: "There was a question and answer session and someone asked him if he went to Liverpool much.

"He said: 'All I did wrong there was tell the truth. There was a surge of Liverpool fans who had been drinking and that is what caused the disaster.

'The only thing different we did was put it under the headline 'The Truth'.

'I went on the World at One the next day and apologised. I only did that because Rupert Murdoch told me to. I wasn't sorry then and I'm not sorry now because we told the truth.' "

The source added: "He then compared people in the city to animal rights protesters and told an anecdote about a time when he visited the city and got in a taxi.

"He said the driver was talking about The Sun and said if he ever had Kelvin McKenzie in his taxi he would kill him.

"Then he said if the things he had said today got out he was sure the whole thing would blow up again."

Last night, families of the 96 victims, Liverpool FC and politicians condemned Mr MacKenzie.

The head of the Hillsborough Family Support Group branded the comments callous and challenged him to repeat them to him face to face.

Phil Hammond, chairman of the Hillsborough Family Support Group, whose 14-year-old son died in the tragedy, said: "This just shows what kind of man he is.

"It has been proven that the story was a pack of lies yet here is all these years later peddling his lies on the after-dinner speaking circuit.

"Why doesn't he come and tell the families this to their faces?

"If he really believed he was printing the truth and stood by what he said then why didn't he walk away when Rupert Murdoch supposedly made him make this apology?"

A spokesman for Liverpool FC said: "Any comment of that nature would be totally inappropriate and hugely disappointing." Liverpool FC were playing Nottingham Forest in the FA Cup semi-final at the South Yorkshire stadium in 1989.

Lord Justice Taylor's official inquiry into the tragedy found the cause of the disaster was overcrowding and failures by the police.

The Sun apologised in July 2004 saying it was "truly sorry" and that its false allegations were "the most terrible mistake in its history."

But families of the victims refused to accept the apology, which was issued in the wake of the angry reaction on Merseyside caused by Everton and England soccer star Wayne Rooney's deal to tell his life story to the newspaper, for a reported Â£250,000.

He returned to The Sun to work as a columnist from May, 2006, and is also current boss of the Wireless Group.

Walton MP Peter Kilfoyle said: "His comments just reinforce the fact that he was an unfit person to run a national newspaper.

"Everybody knows he sanctioned that story and he will have to live with that."

Louise Ellman, MP for Liverpool Riverside, said: "I think it is outrageous.

"It shows that when prejudice is deeply ingrained it is very difficult to remove.

"All the facts, including the official inquiry, are against him. It is disgraceful."

Posted: **12 Dec 2006, 18:41**

I used to buy the scum until the day that headline ("The Truth") came out. Since that day I have never, ever touched it. I know hundreds of people that still refuse to buy it.

That paper is not worth wrapping todays fish and chips in.

The Sun = s**t
Kelvin MacKenzie = s**t

Posted: **12 Dec 2006, 18:45**

look here

for more info and some stuff about what the enquiry said.

i was in liverpool then.

Posted: **12 Dec 2006, 20:20**

Yir tea's oot K-Mac!

I'm not making light of this situation, I really do think him and all his Murdoch/Thatcherite junta tabloid scum really should get a good stabbing!
What a despicable person.

Posted: **12 Dec 2006, 20:51**

snowey wrote:I used to buy the scum until the day that headline ("The Truth") came out. Since that day I have never, ever touched it. I know hundreds of people that still refuse to buy it.

And what do they go out and buy?

The News of the World.

As well meant as the boycott is, some people seem oblivious to the fact that the only thing their wallets are voting on is which of Murdoch's bank accounts the money ends up in (obviously not all switched to TNOTW, but it certainly wasn't an insignificant number).

Posted: **13 Dec 2006, 09:07**

my best friend at the time had tickets for the pen where they died. ironically it was the inept police decision to allow the fans a free-for-all when the gates opened late that saved him, as the weight of the crowd forced hin into the next pen. a bit to close for comfort, he was stil;l stood right next to the dead and the dying and cannot recall the day without crying his eyes out.

that bastard mckenzie should be thrown to the Kop for pre-match entertainment.

Posted: **13 Dec 2006, 12:06**

Is there no blame at all to be attached to the hundreds of Liverpool supporters who turned up at Hillsborough without tickets? If the police hadn't opened those gates, would there not have been a similar crush and deaths outside the stadium?

Hillsborough wasn't the first time that people died around Liverpool fans in the eighties.

Posted: **13 Dec 2006, 12:23**

markfiend wrote:Is there no blame at all to be attached to the hundreds of Liverpool supporters who turned up at Hillsborough without tickets? If the police hadn't opened those gates, would there not have been a similar crush and deaths outside the stadium?

Hillsborough wasn't the first time that people died around Liverpool fans in the eighties.

You're spot on there, Heysel is always conveniently forgotten.

Posted: **13 Dec 2006, 12:52**

heysel was a godawful mess, but no-one denies that it was caused by the hooliganism/rioting between the two sets of fans.
hillsborough was an organisational cock-up, and regardless of the number of ticketless fans can only be blamed on poor decisions made by the police and the grounds marshalls. it was a pretige FA cup semi which should have been adequately policed and strictly organised to deal with any number of "gatecrashers" who may gave turned up on spec.

both disasters have hopefully lead to lessons being learned; unfortunately, it seems, not by mr mckenzie.

Posted: **13 Dec 2006, 13:02**

For every big match there are always people who turn up "on spec" in the hope that someone has a spare ticket. It's was up to the police to make sure that these people are kept well away from the ground. The police at Sheffield didn't do that. Yes Liverpool fans tried to and did get in without tickets but I can put my hand up and say that I would have done exactly the same had it been Tranmere.

How many times have "we" turned up at a sold out gig on the off chance of buying a ticket off a tout or slipping the security Â£10... i'm sure that's most off us....

Posted: **13 Dec 2006, 13:35**

snowey wrote:How many times have "we" turned up at a sold out gig on the off chance of buying a ticket off a tout or slipping the security Â£10... i'm sure that's most off us....

Aye, that's a fair point.

But I still struggle to lay all the blame at the door of the police. I don't think I'll persuade anyone though, so I'll leave it.

All this being said, I'm not trying to defend that cnut MacKenzie by any stretch. As it happens, I happen to think he's lying when he says that Murdoch ordered him to apologise. I reckon he sh1t out when confronted and didn't dare stand by his "story". The fact that he's gone back and rationalised what happened to make himself look (in his own eyes) like the martyred journalist trying to defend his integrity is, coming from him, frankly a joke.

Posted: **13 Dec 2006, 16:31**

What did Heysel have to do with the bin-dippers? All their accounts clearly state 'it wuz chelsea!'.

Hillsborough was a mess, wasn't there so couldn't possibly comment on apportioning of blame or incident. Still, it curtailed their plane impressions and Munich flags.

Posted: **13 Dec 2006, 17:20**

eastmidswhizzkid wrote:heysel was a godawful mess, but no-one denies that it was caused by the hooliganism/rioting between the two sets of fans

Try bringing that up when explaining the "entirely coincidental" European demise of Everton to a Kopite. It's "a low blow" and "all the Italians' fault"

Posted: **13 Dec 2006, 19:11**

Planet Dave wrote: Still, it curtailed their plane impressions and Munich flags.

But it hasn't stopped Liverpool fans throwing s**t at the mancs at Anfield....

And it hasn't stopped the Mancs spray painting Hillsborough "comments" on the M602 into Manc when Liverpool played a semi at Old Trafford last year.

Nothing will ever stop the hatred between Scousers & Mancs infact 3 Liverpool fans were convicted today for roiting after a Liverpool v Man Utd game last season.

Posted: **13 Dec 2006, 19:55**

snowey wrote:I used to buy the scum until the day that headline ("The Truth") came out. Since that day I have never, ever touched it. I know hundreds of people that still refuse to buy it.

That paper is not worth wrapping todays fish and chips in.

The Sun = s**t
Kelvin MacKenzie = s**t

I refuse to read any newspapers... or watch the news... except occasionally News Night.

Too f**king depressing.

Posted: **13 Dec 2006, 21:20**

Heysel and Hillsborough were inevetable.
Sorry to say it but,far from being the good humoured scouse scallies they've been portrayed as,a great many Liverpool and Everton fans of the 80's were bastards.
Admitedly all football fans of that era were treated like scum and a great many behaved as such but Scousers were the worst of all.The only time in all my many years attending football I ever got a serious kicking was in Liverpool.
Don't think I'm defending The Sun though.One thing the scousers would never do would be to deliberately harm their own.The fuckers,red and blue,always stuck together and the Hillsborough enquiry was a cover-up of enormous and disgraceful magnitude.

Posted: **14 Dec 2006, 11:57**

snowey wrote: Nothing will ever stop the hatred between Scousers & Mancs infact 3 Liverpool fans were convicted today for roiting after a Liverpool v Man Utd game last season.

Nor should it. Were they the balloons who attacked Alan Smith's ambulance? Usual scouse behaviour, groups having a pop at individuals, or in Smith's case, the recently crippled.

Posted: **14 Dec 2006, 13:26**

Such nice people. People wonder why I don't 'do' football

Heartland

hillsborough.. return of 'the scum'

hillsborough.. return of 'the scum'