Boris Johnson - disgusting or what?

[beansprout]

What an insulting idiot. Shame on him.

Just caught up with this so am repeating what was said earlier but Boris's Hillsborough comments were despicable. How DARE he repeat the cruel, disgusting lies the police and the Sun told in an attempt to cover up the police commander's incompetence? How DARE anyone attack innocent victims and their families in this way, especially given the history of these lies being exposed?
Makes me feel physically sick and I'm not personally connected with the tragedy in any way, beyond having gone past Hillsborough stadium every day on my way to school.

Not sure I understand why Boris being an MP is a conflict of interest. Could someone please explain?

There isn't a conflict of interest in this instance

Frieda - it's because newspaper/magazine editors 'should' be politicaly impartial, but as an MP that's impossible.

I've never come across a politically impartial newspaper editor - do they exist

I can't think of a sinefle news paper that it 100% impartial, The independent is probably the closes, but the Mirror, Sun, Telegrah, Grauniad, Times? None of them are even pretending to be impartial!

Signing a book of condolence is similar to sending a sympathy card surely? And who is to say how many of the people signing the book in liverpool didn't have some connection with the family? Not necessarily a relative but maybe a friend or a second cousin once removed.Even someone who used to live in the same street as his mum? Don't you think it will be nice for his family in the future to look at this book and realise that so many people were thinking of them?
When something happens'close to home' it does shock you and make you feel bad for however short a time.
I don't know if people outside of liverpool realise how much Hillsborough affected the whole city.I personally knew one boy from 6th form who was killed, and one of my closest friends was injured quite badly.So for example if 50% of people in liverpool had similar connections,is it any wonder people reacted with 'grief'?
What was printed by the sun was vicious lies designed to sell papers.For a politician to repeat those lies all these years later is very very wrong.

The reason I don't think MP's should be involved in media (as in media ownership, editorship) is the fact that they could influence the output to their own political desires. I agree there are really no papers that are truly independent but the people that run those papers are by their training or experience, journalists. People like Boris have been elected and are paid by taxpayers to be MPs. They, to a lesser extent in opposition, run the country and have access to a large amount of information that we, the public, never see or they have it in advance of the public (like when and how the soldiers are deployed in Iraq).

The media has a huge influence on the way people think and vote in this country and whilst we all acknowledge the political leanings of certain papers, I for one would feel uncomfortable knowing that an elected MP could control the output of any media organisation.

I don't, in this instance, think there was any specific conflict of interest with Boris and his comments, I just don't personally think it should ever get to this point.

It's just a personal opinion really.

yes - I'm just using Boris as an example really. His mag is very small and clearly very Tory but I still don't like the fact that an elected MP can have influence over any media output (but it would be far more worrying if it was on a larger scale).

As for Murdoch - he's a successful businessman but I don't find his ownership of those papers worrying. He's really a law unto his own and I think most people acknowledge that. It's never stopped the majority of people in this country buying his papers though.

I have to agree with your point about papers deciding which murder stories will generate better media coverage than others (thus 'valuing' some people's lives more than others) but unfortunately, whilst all the papers are run as companies (with the aim of making a profit), that will always be the case.

I agree 100% with Edam. I think his comments about Hillsborough were vile, despicable and truly beneath contempt. How DARE he blame the victims - the innocent people who died so horrifically, full of fear and panic and literally crushed to death as they begged for help, including children - for their own fate, or blaming other innocent people who were herded into a space far too small for them all. The official inquiry exonerated the fans and laid the blame squarely on bad policing - and on the dreadful cages that left the victims nowhere to go. I will never forget the images of those faces pressed against the wire as their breath was crushed out of them. Go on Boris, you vile oaf, tell Tony Bland's parents that he was just a drunk who deserved to die and shouldn't be mourned by anyone. I dare you.

couldn't have said it better myself.

do you think that so many people were so shocked about ken bigley because it was videoed and broadcast, and if tho we didn't see what exactly went on, we had a sense of just what he must have been going through - it's like seeing someone dying the flesh.

I thought at the time - i wonder if we'd feel more for individual murder victims who are subjected to terrible ordeals before they die if we knew what they'd been through in a way that was more than just reading about it? we kind of shut our mind off when we read about things like these because it's too horrible to contemplate. with ken bigley we were forced to take it all in and see man's inhumanity to man close up and that maybe why it was so very shocking and provoked such emotion.

I remember feeling a similar way years ahgo when the bbc broadcast the last minutes of those two undercover police officers who stumbled into an IRA funeral and were set upon by a mob and beaten to death. I remember being horrified to be seeing their faces as they realised how much troublke they were in, trying to rverse their car and then seeing their partially clothed bodies lying under blankets about an hour later on a bit of wasteland. Absolutely horrific.

oh yes I remember that.

sorry about the typos - should say 'dying IN the flesh'. too many other typos to correct just now!

as if I woudl notice!

treu

A lot has been said about Hillsborough - anyone remember Heysel?

Of course peopel remember Heysel fantasia - both my brothers were there. Not sure of your point. Liverpool had some fans who behaved very badly therefore all people from Liverpool are flawed?

Different place, different people. As Tinker says, what exactly is your point?
As for 'hysterical outpourings of grief" there were a lot more of those in London about Diana than in Liverpool over Ken Bigley. So why wasn't the Spectator article about Londoner's penchant for self-pity etc? Oooh, wouldn't be because all the spectator staff live in London and think people from Liverpool are common oiks, would it?

Tinker, You said that, not me. My point is that there is an element of people, so called football supporters (Liverpool or anyone else) who leave their brains at home when they go to a match. There have been comments on this thread that seem to suggest that at Hillsborough there was none of the element present, that is a totally deluded point of view.

Aloha, yes, different time, different place but of course the Liverpool fans WERE to blame for 39 deaths on that occasion - that?s why its always conveniently never mentioned.

If people in Liverpool (quite rightly) remember annually the people who tragically died at Hillsborough then they should also do the same for those who died at Heysel.

and aloha a comment like this "Oooh, wouldn't be because all the spectator staff live in London and think people from Liverpool are common oiks, would it? " is really quite juvenile, you don't do yourself any favours with it.

can't believe i've just read that!
am at a bit of a loss as to what to say.... but does this mean that ALL liverpool fans should take collective responsibility for heysel and hillsborough, regardless of the circumstances, causes and effects?????!!!!!!!!
if this had been said about ALL black people or ALL gay people instead of ALL liverpudlian football fans would that still be ok then? how bloody ignorant

I find this whole thread more and more atonishing. I am sorry that it has descended into a bashing of liverpool fans. If you truely knew someone who was there and was right in the midst of it all and is ery lukcy to be alive then 1 or 2 of the comments here would quiet clearly cause offence.

Fantasia, that's a really rude personal comment. What on earth do you think gives you the right to make those comments about me? Did I make a personal attack on you?
And actually, I stand by what I said. There was more 'hysteria' in London than Liverpool. Why did the leader article pick on Liverpool? I do think snobbery played a huge part in that decision. Why, do you think people who work for the spectator are incapable of snobbery??? Have you ever read it? What the hell is 'juvenile' about that?