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To be absolutely steaming about having a free copy of the Sun delivered by Royal Mail?

665 replies

Sixweekstowait · 09/06/2014 09:10

I know I am not BU. I am going to post it back to Sun HQ in an unstamped envelope ( will probably tear it into pieces before I do). Who will join me?

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ScooseIsLoose · 13/06/2014 08:21

I did last night

Andrewofgg · 13/06/2014 08:40

Shakes The candidate's right to a mail shot overrides ASA guidelines. In any case the posties were not interested in ASA, they were interested in deciding what the customer can or cannot read - and it won't do.

fifi669 · 13/06/2014 08:44

andrew I agree. Their job is to deliver post. That's it. It opens the door for refusing to deliver anything they say makes them uncomfortable.

Sixweekstowait · 13/06/2014 08:53

Opens the door, thin end of the wedge, slippery slope - I detest these sorts of sloppy arguments. The Sun and Hillsborough is exceptional - it's ludicrous to argue that this is the beginning of the end of our right to receive post if the postman doesn't want us to. IME, people only resort to this type of argument because they've actually lost the argument and are not very bright

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SelectASweetBreadTwist · 13/06/2014 08:58

You mean the way a journalist's job is to write facts, not malicious fiction?

You mean the way a policeman's job is to record an incident, not falsify statements about it?

You mean the way a football club's board's job is to ensure their ground has a valid safety certificate, not let it lapse for ten years?

Perhaps if a few more people had just done their jobs 25 years ago, the postal workers wouldn't feel forced into making a stand over an incident as tragic, far-reaching and unique as Hillsborough.

alAswad · 13/06/2014 09:10

Perhaps the blame was placed to harshly on LFC fans - perhaps. But the pendulum has no swung too far the other way, with them all, every one of them, being held up as saints and sinless and in no way to blame for anything at all.

Tell that to the families of the victims of Heysel.

Heysel and Hillsborough were unrelated incidents - it's completely illogical to insinuate that the Hillsborough casualties were in some way to blame for their own deaths because of the behaviour of other people who happen to support the same football club. I also haven't heard anyone, including Liverpool fans themselves, suggest that they were completely blameless at Heysel. What people have suggested is that other factors were also involved including dangerous stadium design (something the club pointed out repeatedly beforehand but which was ignored by officials), poor seating allocation, prior violence by other Italian fans causing increased tensions and so on. That isn't passing the buck or suggesting that the fans were innocent, it's pointing out that there were also other ways in which the tragedy could and should have been averted. (Of course it's possible that there are a few nuts claiming the Liverpool supporters were completely innocent as well, of the sort that you're bound to find in every club, but I haven't come across any personally).

Additionally, the fact that the judge has asked for the behaviour of other supporters to be investigated in this inquest also demonstrates that 'every one of them' is most definitely not being held up as 'saints and sinless'. But again, this isn't about Heysel, it's about Hillsborough - they're not connected and shouldn't be conflated.

He went on to say, "I phrase it in that way because I don't believe anyone will suggest that the conduct of those who died in any way contributed to their deaths."

Perhaps he is motivated by a desire to assuage the fears of the families of those that died and, given the outrageous efforts to conceal the truth by some policemen (through the 'editing' of statements), the desire to seek some form of balance is understandable.

Or perhaps, given that even after the initial desperate attempts by the authorities to shift the blame onto the victims (including taking blood alcohol readings at the time, even from young children) the verdict was recorded as accidental death, he's decided it's unlikely that any evidence will be found to say they were complicit in their own deaths now. If, somehow, it was unambiguously discovered that some of them were to blame then I imagine he might well amend his initial statements, but the chances of such unambiguous evidence turning up after 25 years when it was searched hard for in the first place and not found is virtually none.

It's speculation, sure (I tried to find any further statements clarifying his position on that but there were none, even in the full transcript), but no more so than your suggestion, and seems a hell of a lot more plausible to me than deliberately fudging the inquest so as not to offend people.

What will happen if DNA evidence is found to link the injuries suffered by one victim to the fists, fingernails or teeth of another?

I don't even understand what you're insinuating here. All the victims were found to have died through injuries sustained by crushing - why are you implying that their injuries might have been caused by fighting, and that that has something to do with their deaths, when that's already been shown not to be the case? Anyway, given the circumstances of the deaths, I would imagine that any DNA evidence that did turn up as you described would be more likely to come from people hitting or grabbing at each other by accident or in a panic in their attempts to escape, rather than through aggressive behaviour.

What if such evidence is combined with extremely high blood-alcohol readings? Are the jury not to assign any degree of responsibility on the victims, even in those circumstances?

Blood alcohol levels were already taken at the original inquests, including from the child victims, and in the majority of cases no or negligible levels of alcohol were found. The relatives themselves are submitting a report on the blood alcohol readings at the new inquests. So that is highly unlikely. But in any case, it's a red herring - many people have a few drinks or even get drunk before a football match, and the majority of them don't die. To imply that the victims would be somehow to blame for their own deaths based on the fact that they had been drinking before the match is ludicrous, and a huge insult to most 'normal' football fans as well as the casualties here.

I know some people, perhaps many, will disagree with me on this but I raise these concerns to alert other to the dangers of deliberate attempts to conceal or limit the truth. No matter what the motivation, however ‘understandable’, efforts to deflect examination must at the very least be revealed for what they are and should be resisted by anyone that cares about learning from experience.

As others have pointed out above, there has indeed been a conspiracy to conceal the truth, and it's been happening for the past 25 years. What's happening now isn't an attempt at 'deflecting examination', it's an attempt to examine in the first place what should have been investigated at the time but wasn't. The behaviour of the victims was thoroughly picked over the first time round - now is the time to look at the other, more important, factors that for decades were ignored in favour of cover-ups, lies and smears. To focus as much on the fans' behaviour as you have in this post, in light of all the evidence, is like refusing to listen when a doctor tries to talk to you about your cancer because you're too busy insisting that she fix your cold instead.

alAswad · 13/06/2014 09:10

Good God, I did not realise how long that post was... apologies Blush

SelectASweetBreadTwist · 13/06/2014 09:11
TrueGent · 13/06/2014 09:13

To be clear, The Spectator article accused the city of Liverpool of 'revelling in victimhood' - not the families of the 96.

Clearly, the bereaved are entitled to mourn and to seek justice.

And yes Andrew and fifi, I also thought there was some legal requirement for post to be delivered and that tampering with the Royal Mail (i.e. choosing not to deliver something because of your own personal views) is illegal.

If you don't want to read The Sun, don't read it. It really is that simple.

TrueGent · 13/06/2014 09:19

alAswad - thanks for your response.

I mentioned Heysel because that formed part of the context within which footballs matches were being managed (or otherwise!) at the time.

I say again, to find out what happened - you have to have an open mind and consider all the evidence. Which means NOT ruling out certain conclusions right at the outset.

Yes, the police colluding to change statements and reduce any culpability of their own was wrong, illegal and should be punished. But pushing the pendulum too far the other way is not the way to redress - the best thing to do is consider the evidence and then draw conclusions.

gordyslovesheep · 13/06/2014 09:21

Brilliant post alAswad thank you x

gordyslovesheep · 13/06/2014 09:22

also it's unaddressed mail so it's not tampering - it's not addressed to anyone - it's junk and you can refuse to take junk mail

VSeth · 13/06/2014 09:29

I received mine yesterday. Seems to be a football special rather than the normal rag in full.

I haven't read it, I don't want it. I haven't time to read 26 pages of this thread so apologies if -this has been done but is there a "return to sender" option? Or do I just put it in a postbox?

Dutchoma · 13/06/2014 09:30

I wrote the Freepost address on it and posted it back into the nearest post box. such a feeling of liberation: I had DONE something about it and it was no longer in my house. Don't post it back dirty though, granny's birthday card to youngest grandson might be in the letterbox and you don't want them to spoil that Grin

alAswad · 13/06/2014 09:58

But TrueGent, that's exactly my point - they're not ruling out anything at the outset, they're ruling out the one part that has already been comprehensively investigated and found to be irrelevant. If it weren't for the suffering of the families then maybe they wouldn't have decided to specifically exclude that, true, but on the other hand if it was believed that the chances of the jury finding new evidence that the victims were complicit were anything more than negligible I'm sure it wouldn't have been excluded then either. A biased inquest is in no-one's interests, but neither is rehashing old evidence that couldn't be made relevant even by people who were trying their hardest to make it so to the point of falsification, at the expense of those who are really suffering here.

JohnFarleysRuskin · 13/06/2014 09:59

Didn't receive one! My fury must remain pent-up. Rats!

Sixweekstowait · 13/06/2014 10:08

AlAswad - thank you for such a sterling effort

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Dutchoma · 13/06/2014 10:09

Just a thought: What if we All saved up All our junkmail for about a week and then All posted EVERYTHING back into the post box on a given day. Would that stop them delivering the junk?

Andrewofgg · 13/06/2014 10:12

Bourdic If I worked for RM and was black I would find a BNP election manifesto more offensive than the Sun. Exceptionally to use your word. But if there is a BNP candidate in the area where I work I've still got to deliver it and arguments about Griffin's past will be irrelevant. It's my job. End of, as my son's generation says.

TillyTellTale · 13/06/2014 10:14

Just got mine. I notice the titillating picture of Kelly Brook on page three, and the written description of her body.

So definitely the Sun then!

SelectASweetBreadTwist · 13/06/2014 10:18

It's easy to be categorical about what you would or wouldn't do in a hypothetical situation.

We need more people prepared to stand up and say "no, this is unacceptable" rather than just taking the corporate dollar unthinkingly because "it's their job", not fewer.

TrueGent · 13/06/2014 10:40

alAswad - I'm saying that nothing should be ruled out and you're saying that nothing should be ruled out apart from the possibility of some of the victims being in any way partially responsible for their own deaths.

I disagree with you; you disagree with me. And the world continues to turn!

I just get very twitchy when people refer to other people's "suffering", or "think of the families" or "better not speak ill of the dead" or "that's unhelpful...we've covered this...let's move on" and such like.

Like I've mentioned, I run meetings where potentially sensitive stuff is discussed and frequently encounter such resistance to people uncovering the truth (usually for reasons of self-protection).

RedToothBrush · 13/06/2014 11:01

At the heart of why the victims and their families were treated is a cold prejudice and bigotry towards Scousers in general though.

I categorically do not think that the public would have accepted some of the things that were said at the time about fans of some other clubs.

Thats not what you do when it comes to matters of justice though. You look at the facts, rather than dismissing them and assuming 'that group of people are like this so its not worth investigating'. Yet it was done and it was deemed acceptable to do, because well, Liverpool was something of an easy target and no one in authority saw a problem with it.

So I do think there is a justifiable feeling that the city as a whole could feel aggrieved about as it's feed into existing negative stereotypes and reinforced them. There were considerable elements of discrimination and ignorance.

2boysandcounting1 · 13/06/2014 11:02

Tilly- i noticed that too and thought what a disgusting way to write about somebody. The words they used to describe her body just confirmed that they don't see women as people just body parts. Why not a similar article to describe the men's pictures? Totally sexist which is why i ripped mine up and sent it back telling them what i thought of them. They probably don't care but it certainly made me feel better.

HenI5 · 13/06/2014 11:29

Didn't get a copy, not sure if that's because it's scheduled for today, if it's not being sent here or if the postman took notice of my note on the letter box.

Hadn't realized that this free copy is
"Part funded by advertisers including Sky, Aldi, Coke, BT, Mars and Domino's"

Applause and Thanks go to alAswad

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