Hillsborough: Cameron doesn’t understand

The Hillsborough disaster was a national tragedy. Football is our national game. It always has been. Despite most cabinet members from the Thatcher government preferring to spend Saturdays at Twickenham rather than on the Terraces, football fans are not and never have been second class citizens.

It is true to say we felt like that back in 1989. It isn’t the case now. Now politicians want to be seen as ‘ordinary’ people so they go to the football on a Saturday and take their places in the corporate hospitality suites. For some, they are still being treated like second class citizens. Those people are the families of the 96 that died at Hillsborough.

Imagine what it must be like to know that your ten year old son died from suffocation whilst standing up straight. Imagine what it must be like to know that when he was gasping his last breaths, when help could have rescued him, the emergency services stood idly by. Imagine what it is like knowing his dead body was tested for alcohol because the Home Secretary of the day, Douglas Hurd, believed drunken fans had caused the crush. Imagine what it must be like knowing that your son’s death could have been avoided if a referee had delayed a kick off and the police commander hadn’t of ordered a gate to be opened.

It’s devastating to type this. How bad must it be to live it?

So when I was asked by the families to help them to achieve full disclosure, I gave them my word that I would never give up the fight. I made the promise when I was Lord Mayor of Liverpool and I carried on the fight as the Member of Parliament for Liverpool Walton.

Last week’s debate was a landmark moment in the fight for justice, but it wasn’t the end.

I have never wanted to make this party political. Andy Burnham said himself that he was as frustrated as anyone that the last Labour government failed to support the families. In the end, the Brown government came good and the Hillsborough Independent Panel was created. Everyone on Merseyside welcomed that. The next step was full disclosure. We have that.

However, what we are up against has become all too apparent in the last 24 hours. David Cameron doesn’t understand the depth of feeling in this country about the Hillsborough disaster. This is not a case of scousers, down on their luck, having a moan. This is about reconciling the biggest injustice on British soil since world war two. If he had of bothered to come to the debate or even had a conversation with Theresa May, then he would know, this isn’t just about Liverpool. MPs from all over the country supported the fight for justice. Clive Betts gave an emotional speech in which he made clear that the city of Sheffield still live with a dark cloud over them. Dan Jarvis and John Mann spoke of the heartache people from Nottingham still feel when they think back to that day and how close they were to being in the exact same position as Liverpool fans found ourselves in.

Hillsborough truly was a national tragedy and it requires national leadership.

Cameron’s remark that the families of the dead are like a “blind man in a dark room looking for a black cat that isn’t there,” is as offensive as it is distressing. This is very serious indeed. If the Prime Minister has taken the time to read all two million documents and knows beyond a shadow of a doubt that there was no cover up, why hasn’t he told anyone? If he knows what went on, then he should come to the dispatch box and tell the country.

Last week’s debate restored a lot of faith in politics amongst ordinary men and women in Britain but people won’t like what the Prime Minister said. What right does he have to tell the families what constitutes closure for them and what doesn’t?

Today I, like many other MPs, have written to the Prime Minister to seek clarification from him. If it emerges that this was yet another crass remark by the country’s leader, then I want a full apology from him, on the steps of Downing Street. A simple statement released by his press office whilst he is away in Brussels is yet another slap in the face for the families and for the people that died.