Link to the quote then.

Patnick should not have been the main source to that story, and it's inconceivable that he was.

Would you think that Patnick's comments were ever worthy of going straight to the front page of the biggest newspaper in the country, without verification? No? Well why should he?

His submission to Justice Taylor pointed out that he called out a journalist for attributing comments to him that he'd never made. It has only been revealed now that MacKenzie was relying on him as his source. Why should Patnick have thought that MacKenzie's sole source was him?

I did. A few posts ago.



Nobody is claiming that he was the sole source. It changes nothing. He happens, though, to have been the local MP and a senior politician in the government of the day. In other words, he would be seen as believable.

Christ: this was in the era of a judge believe a liar like Archer because his wife was "fragrant".



Now what newspaper would that be, owned by whom and with what links to the Establishment?



It doesn't make an iota of difference. He has admitted he made some damaging comments – and apologised for them. He's admitted his own culpability – even saying he should not have taken them at face value without investigating further, and that was his responsibility.



And it is utterly irrelevant whether he thought he was the sole source or not. If you go around telling porkies/repeating gossip just because you think you're not the only one doing so, it does not deflect from your own responsibility. In fact, it's actually funny that you seem to imagine that this is the case.

And he was an MP, and a senior member of the government of the day.

WTFever.

The hooligan element in football played a mammoth part in the Hillsborough disaster. A significant part of of the hooligan element resided at my club. Indeed, on the day of Hillsborough Chelsea fans caused trouble at Leicester, many gained entry without tickets or payment and deaths and injuries could have occurred because of our fans behaviour.

The notion that misbehaviour of football fans wasn't in any way to blame for Hillsborough, which seems to be the conclusion of last weeks report, is completely and utterly bogus IMO. The reason that football was policed as it was was because of hooligans, not Margaret Thatcher as you wish to claim. The article that you linked to, that "hooliganism had organically ended" because of acid house and E is so ludicrous that you've got to be questioned as to how you could link to it.

You asked a question of would the deaths of 96 people have been covered up if it happened at Lords. But the fact is that 96 deaths wouldn't have happened at a cricket match. The only circumstances where those deaths could have happened were at a football match. Not cricket, not RL, not RU.

My main reason for even being on this thread is because I want "The Truth" to actually be THE TRUTH. From everything I've seen until now the vilification of Patnick is nothing more than a search for scapegoats, and in your case a search for a scapegoat who is your political enemy. If Patnick f'd up, then I couldn't care less about him and he's getting what he deserves. But that doesn't alter the fact that you don't need or want evidence to throw him to the lions. Being a Tory MP is enough for you.

For the benefit of Mintball, football 'hooliganism' pre-dated Mrs Thatcher's time in power.

Yes dear. I think you'll find I mentioned something of the history of football-related hooliganism.

Probably about the time I was handing you your backside on a plate when you tried to claim that hooliganism was a product of the "liberal" 1960s.

You said: Patnick has said himself that he passed on what he been told as fact.

This is what Patnick said: It is now clear that the information I received from some police officers at the time was wholly inaccurate, misleading and plain wrong. However, I totally accept responsibility for passing such information on without asking further questions.

He doesn't say whether he passed on the allegation as fact, or whether he merely reported what the police officers had told him.

So you are completely and utterly wrong to claim that he said himself that he passed it in as fact. Like I said, the fact that you're a journalist shows up what a sorry state journalism is in in the UK.



Kelvin MacKenzie is saying he was the main source, along with a senior police officer.



It wasn't Patnick's responsibility to find out the truth of the allegations. He didn't have the power or the remit to do so. In fact the truth of the allegations are practically impossible to prove or disprove. If a cop comes forward and says he witnessed a thief stealing from a dead body, you won't believe him anyway. Given the fact that 96 people died and hundreds more were injured, petty theft, however disgusting, is pretty much irrelevant anyway.

In terms of informing the attitudes of the police toward football fans in general, and via that, informing their actions on the day – quite probably.

That does not mean that there was some mass hooligan presence on the day – and that they were, as you are trying to suggest, blocking the way that ambulances might have been able to get through.



Well indeed. Kindly point out anyone who has suggested as much.



So the reason RL is or has been policed is because of hooligans, yes?



I have claimed no such thing.



I linked to it for the reasons that have been explored here. If you're either too busy to read those posts, or couldn't understand them or have simply chosen to ignore them, that's up to you.



Or at rock concerts. Must be footy hooligans to blame ...



Oh for goodness sake, stop trying to pretend that Patnick didn't 'f up'. He did – [uhe himself has admitted as much with his apology[/u. He doesn't need you trying to pretend he didn't. And your efforts to pretend that the only context to Hillsborough that matters is football-related hooliganism (but absolutely not anything whatsoever to do with politics) is simply risable and as selective as much of what else you've chosen to 'understand' or not here.

Ah. So he [ididn't[/i think it was a fact, then? And he chose to pass on something he didn't believe was a fact?

Stop it. You're just being silly now.



I'm not here in a professional capacity, any more than anyone else is. Including you. Whatever it is that you do. Or don't.

I'm not trying to say that there was a mass hooligan presence that day. I was trying to think of a reason why the police didn't allow more ambulances onto the pitch.

The fact that there was a significant worry of hooliganism for the police to have to form a line on the field to stop violence, an action that Justice Taylor said was correct, suggests though that the threat of hooliganism still was present. Forest fans did boo at the game being abandoned, they obviously thought the game had been stopped because of violence, rather than the true reason.



The general response to last weeks report is: Football fans, completely and totally innocent at Hillsborough.



No. It's policed because it's a large scale public event and the lack of policing would create problems for both the participants and the community.

But RL games aren't policed like football games were.



And I posted about my reasons for thinking that article was ridiculous BS.

'"

According to the reports last week he "reported" and "helped perpetuate" the rumours...

[urlhttp://www.itv.com/news/update/2012-09-13/calls-for-sir-irvine-patnick-to-be-stripped-of-knighthood/[/url

[urlhttp://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2012/09/12/sir-irvine-patnick-should-lose-knighthood-says-mp_n_1877459.html[/url






I don't think that anyone is suggesting otherwise.

Are you on medication? Drunk? Suffering a brain injury?

He wasn't there. He doesn't know if the officer was telling the truth or making it up. If he says that it's a fact that police were abused and the dying were robbed, he's a liar and wrong.

But if he says that a police officer told these things to him then he's being completely honest.



Whether you're here in a professional capacity or not, any journalist with a working brain should know that Patnick never said he passed off rumour as fact. The fact that you cannot make that distinction quickly and easily right now suggests that you are a shoddy journalist, and shows just why journalism in the UK is screwed.

If all Patnick did was tell a news agency journalist that a couple of police officers told him they were victims of terrible behaviour from some Liverpool fans, and that was the extent of his involvement, do you think he should be stripped of his knighthood because of it?

Because I don't.

Those two stories don't make any suggestion as to what he did.

If he repeated allegations as fact then I've said his knighthood should be stripped. If he was constantly on the call to numerous journalists and news organisations making these claims and pushing this story then his knighthood should be stripped.

What did the Hillsborough Independent Panel actually say about Patnick's involvement? You see, if I was a journo, or a campaigner like Mintball, and I wanted him to be rightly stripped of his knighthood, I'd offer all the facts I had and let people see the wrongdoing he'd done.

The absence of these facts suggest to me that he's just a sacrificial lamb and the people want their blood.

If I'm wrong, post the evidence and prove me wrong. But don't offer those articles and offer them as proof.

Patnick's submission of notes on 20.04.89 to me seem confusing. He relates comments made by police officers which claim terrible behaviour by allegedly drunken Liverpool supporters but then immediately says he was advised by senior police officers to treat what he'd heard with a pinch of salt. To me that implies the senior officers were sceptical of what their sub-ordinates were saying? Then right at the end Patnick seems to me to say there were rumours of what had been said to him flying around in the press and he corrected them by saying what he'd been told, in part. He said although he didn't know the names / numbers of the officers he bieleved they were telling the truth.

So it seems he was only ever relating what he'd been told. I am unclear which parts he had told the press to clear things up? The junior or officers' comments? Did he express the senior officers' caveat? His notes seem a little confused and unclear though.

Whatever, he seems to have made a submission to the original enquiry based on what he'd been told and not as fact as portrayed bt Mintball.

Just read up a little on John Mann.

If Patnick is guilty of serious wrongdoing then I hope someone more substantial is going to come out against him. In his campaign against Salvia divinorum he managed to rake up 11 and 18 votes to get it banned. WHO'S GOING TO PROTECT THE CHILDREN?????

We're going around in circles here because we are both aware of the full extent of the story that broke last week, I have never demanded that he be stripped of his knighthood, he can keep the bloody thing as far as I'm concerned because its just a title as far as I'm concerned, he'd be called "Mr" if I ever had to address him or any other Knight of the Realm.

What is certain is that he is a former politician, he knows how politics work, its not like the real world and the silence in the intervening days tells me that he, and Tory central office are laying low at the moment and waiting to see if the smoke blows away - the insistence from the Hillsborough families that they haven't yet finished and will, if necessary, seek civil compensation if criminal charges are not brought seem to suggest that there is an awful lot of mileage in this and other matters yet.

The whole smear campaign of the time leaves a very bad taste, Camerons apology last week was said to be heartfelt and probably went some way to distancing himself and his colleagues from all of this - a distance which he'll be keen to maintain by silence and non-action at the moment.

Okay, forget the knighthood part.

If all Patnick did was speak to news agencies in his local area and say that police officers made those allegations to him, does he deserve the condemnation he is now getting?

I don't think he does. I think the fact that MacKenzie used him as one of the main sources of "The Truth" shows more than anything how ridiculous MacKenzie and The Sun were to print it. IMO any attempt by MacKenzie to ask lawyers whether that was fit to be printed would result in them kicking him out of their office. My dog knows that the story is unprintable with the weak sources they have. But throughout the years MacKenzie has always alluded to there being more to the story. He said he was forced to apologise, but never meant it because there was truth to it. And now it emerges that his story was virtually worthless and without merit.

But just as newspapers were wrong to put blame on supporters without any evidence, so is Mintball wrong to call for punishment for Patnick when there's no evidence to say he's done anything wrong.

If you are going to discuss the guy's comments, best to do so in the light of his submission: hillsborough.independent.gov.uk/ ... 460001.pdf

If you are going to discuss the guy's comments, best to do so in the light of his submission: hillsborough.independent.gov.uk/ ... 460001.pdf

Quote ="Dally"If you are going to discuss the guy's comments, best to do so in the light of his submission: hillsborough.independent.gov.uk/ ... 460001.pdf'" His very last paragraph is where he admits to having passed on the stories to the media that were told to him by police officers on the day, some time between the 15th and the 19th, obviously the press had heard or were fishing with lots of stories and he passed on what he had been told first hand. You still need to place those comments in the context of 1989 and the political situation of the time, its too easy for those who are now in their thirties to not actually comprehend the attrition of politics when to all intents and purposes we have had two main and one minor political parties who since at least 1997 have been undistinguishable between each other. That there was a cover up is of no doubt, that it was of a political nature is in no doubt and that it was intentionally meant to be divisive, to blame innocents and protect the incompetent is also of no doubt. The story still has a long way to run yet and Camerons separation of his party from the affair is notable.

Quote ="Dally"If you are going to discuss the guy's comments, best to do so in the light of his submission: hillsborough.independent.gov.uk/ ... 460001.pdf'" His very last paragraph is where he admits to having passed on the stories to the media that were told to him by police officers on the day, some time between the 15th and the 19th, obviously the press had heard or were fishing with lots of stories and he passed on what he had been told first hand. You still need to place those comments in the context of 1989 and the political situation of the time, its too easy for those who are now in their thirties to not actually comprehend the attrition of politics when to all intents and purposes we have had two main and one minor political parties who since at least 1997 have been undistinguishable between each other. That there was a cover up is of no doubt, that it was of a political nature is in no doubt and that it was intentionally meant to be divisive, to blame innocents and protect the incompetent is also of no doubt. The story still has a long way to run yet and Camerons separation of his party from the affair is notable.

Agree, disagree, disagree, agree

It was a police cover up intended to protect the police

Sheet 4 is very confusing.

On the Hillsborough Independent Panel there was the Bishop of Liverpool, Peter Scruton, author of Hillsborough: The Truth and Kate Jones, a producer on McGovern's Hillsborough documentary.

Raju Bhatt had led legal action against South Yorkshire Police over the miners strike.

Peter Sissons was born and raised in Liverpool.

Perhaps you should write to the Times and the Prime Minister to complain about your perception of bias, instead of writing on a pretty insignificant internet message board?

You clearly wouldn't recognise "a working brain" if one got up and smacked across the chops, sunny Jim.

If he reported something to a news agency that he didn't believe was factually correct (ie a fact/facts), then he deserves even more anger.



Oh. So now you're switching tack to try to claim the whole thing was biased.



Presumably the retired police chief and the former Met Police information expert and the doctor were just token appointees, eh? Sat back and just let those biased Scousers run the whole show, ignoring facts and evidence?

His submission said he had no reason not to believe the officers.

Ergo he passed it on – as fact.