Alan Stewart, Wakefield
At the recent FA Cup final, Liverpool football fans booed and barracked the reigning monarch’s eldest grandson, William Windsor, as he was introduced to the teams. There was further booing and jeering during the national anthem.
The political reaction was predictable. The House of Commons speaker Sir Lindsay Hoyle said it was “shameful”. Former Tory culture secretary Karen Bradley described it as “totally unacceptable”. And pompous Liberal Democrat leader Sir Ed Davey claimed the fans didn’t represent their club.
Yet the reasons for Liverpool fans’ action are clear.
In the 1980s, the Tories spoke of the “managed decline” of Liverpool. Closures were allowed and mass unemployment followed. When a Militant (now Socialist Party)-led socialist city council fought back with social investment and house building, there were prolonged clashes with the Margaret Thatcher government in Westminster.
Then there was Hillsborough in 1989. 97 Liverpool fans died in the crush.
The Tories and the media slandered Liverpool fans in the aftermath. Police incompetence was covered up.
It was only after campaigning by relatives and the wider community that the truth emerged. However, despite public inquiries and inquests, no one was successfully prosecuted.
Boris Johnson wrote in 2004 that Liverpool had an “excessive predilection for welfarism”. Liverpudlians had a “peculiar and unattractive psyche”. And they “wallowed in” their “victim status”.
Little surprise then that the Tories are loathed on Merseyside. And little surprise that royalty are also despised. Liverpool fans reject the British establishment’s born-to-rule ideology, its privilege and false talk of ‘national unity’.