One of the things that winds me up is when people say that it's actions, not words, that matter. It assumes that words are somehow not actions. They are. Much language is performative: it makes happen what it says.
I have been sitting in the decisive House of Bishops meeting in Oxford discussing (seriously, constructively, intelligently and eirenically) the proposed wording of an amendment to the wording of the draft legislation to allow women to become bishops. The consensus on the way ahead was overwhelming and this will be evident in the statements being issued shortly. I don't want to preempt that, but I only have a few minutes to write this and then go to my next engagement. However, we leave Oxford having taken words apart and debated meanings. Words matter – as is evident if you ever get them wrong or use the wrong ones.
But, what shares my mental and emotional space today is not bishops, but Liverpool. The Hillsborough Inquiry has reported (excellent work led by the excellent Bishop of Liverpool) and it is deeply shocking. The gracious and poignant dignity, perseverance and faithfulness of those family members bereaved at Hillsborough stands in remarkable contrast to the cover up by police, emergency services, politicians and others. The then editor of the Sun, Kelvin MacKenzie, must have made his position worse with a statement of such vacuous blame-throwing insincerity that I read it with incredulity.
The cry for justice has now been heard. But why did it take 23 years?
Simple words of apology from the Prime Minister matter. He has admitted the offence and has, therefore, performed a vital act for the families and the rest of us: he has articulated and set the course for the next period of life. At last.
23 years.
23 years.
23 years for words to be uttered that might just allow the beginning of healing.
23 years.
It is eight years since Boris Johnson commented so helpfully on the Liverpudlian psyche. I suggest a moment's silence while we consider it and await his apology.
More anon.
Posted with Blogsy
September 12, 2012 at 6:12 pm
Utter scandal. Neither Johnson’s calumny on Liverpudlians nor others of his despicable acts forgotten by me.
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Notable that, while no PM expedited appropriate action, the Independent Inquiry was begun near the end of Gordon Brown’s watch.
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Kelvin MacKenzie still shames his profession and News International and the BBC for whom he now works.
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Will Rupert Murdoch Again speak of being “humbled”? Foreigners and those paying tax abroad to avoid paying it here should be disqualified from owning our national media.
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If we insist on British famed milk, still more is there a case for control of our media by those who share more of our interests than is presently the case.
September 12, 2012 at 9:35 pm
Words do indeed matter, and thank you for yours. The system and some individuals still need to think what theirs might be.
September 12, 2012 at 9:52 pm
Hi Nick, I remember Boris going up to Liverpool to apologise. Why do you feel he has to say sorry again?
September 12, 2012 at 11:53 pm
I don’t think anyone can even begin to understand what it has felt like to be in Liverpool today. There has been a sense of truly prophetic leadership displayed here today by Bishop James Jones, assisted by his excellent, able and extremely courageous panel.
I think it is hugely important that the long awaited truth began to emerge not in a courtroom (although there have been many unsuccessfulattempts at this), or in a public inquiry hall, (again, despite the best efforts of many), but in an Anglican Cathedral.
Like many, in recent times, as a lifelong Anglican of nearly 50 years from infancy, I have at times despaired, especially recently, of the internecine strife that has engulfed and ebveloped the Anglican church internally of late. However, I have never, I repeat never, been more proud of being an Anglican than I am today. The fact that it has taken an Anglican Bishop, assisted by his Panel, to get to the truth where the police, ambulance service, politicians and the media have so dismally and utterly failed, and at times sought to deliberately falsify and mislead, is deeply heartwarming.
Andrew..I am afraid you completely and utterly miss the point. Yes, he may have apologised but that does not alter the fact that what he said was and still remains both disgusting and untrue. Why did he feel the need not only to say it but to print it? The “flawed pschological state” to which Johnson refers, was, as todays evidence clearly shows, NOT on the part of the fans, but surely on the part of the police who felt the need, as people were lying dead in the mortuary, to invent and fabricate untruths in order to cover up for their own obvious failings, and perpetuate the myth that the fans were somehow responsible for their own deaths. Surely you must concede that? And may I also ask what your take is on Kelvin McKenzie’s lamentable and woeful volte-face/miserable attempt at an apology today, not that he had the courage to face any cameras as the relatives had to once more? Just as the police sought to deflect the blame onto someone else rather than accept responibility and take accountability, McKenzie does the same today “ie it wasn’t me guv…honest…it was them…the Press agency and the MP” Yeah..ok..if you say so Kelvin!
Today was a day of immense seminal, pastoral, and in the long term, maybe even missional importance here in Liverpool, the Church of England at its very best. It has felt that, at long last, before the whole of the nation (which is what I think may be slightly annoying Andrew and others), a form of absolution has been officially pronounced, both in the Anglican Cathedral and in the Palace of Westminster.
September 13, 2012 at 3:01 am
Reblogged this on the elves are heading west and commented:
Some wise words from my erstwhile bishop
September 13, 2012 at 4:01 am
Tried to leave a comment. Seem to be being blocked! Moiraxx7
September 13, 2012 at 7:31 am
Johnson’s apology as Editor of the Spectator was at the orders of his party leader Michael Howard. He had a hand in the writing of the piece and and approved it as editor, despite it’s variance with the Taylor report.
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So far as I can see he didn’t withdraw the allegations the piece lyingly reiterated, nor was his paper’s thrust that Hillborough gave rise to sentimentality rather than grief and a desire for justice recanted.
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Howard did not sack him over this slur, but a month later over revelations over his former mistress Petronnella Wyatt, reference to the enormity of which have been removed from Wiki.
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The sub entry “Scandals” has been changed to “Controversies” long since, for Johnson and at least one other of his Bullingdon cohort.
September 13, 2012 at 8:26 am
Scouserphil, I think you misjudge my question. You’ve raised the idea of absolution yourself and the subject of forgiveness is relevant to the fact that Nick’s blog highlights Boris who made an apology eight years ago. You suggest that because Boris’ remarks were so disgusting any apology cannot be received. I’m uncomfortable with that from a Christian perspective, though I’m certainly not expecting those who were directly involved in the events at Hillsborough to share that perspective. That’s a much harder thing.
The sheer scale of the cover-up by authorities is what amazes me about this inquiry. James Jones has brought this to light (and I really hope that this will mark a new beginning for the way we do business in Britain). Who said what, where and why is secondary when you take into account the scale of deception. People who believed the official accounts by the authorities are not the enemy here because they were themselves deceived.
September 13, 2012 at 8:36 am
Briefly, Andrew, knowledge of the truth and the facts changes the game. No longer do we merely surmise. No longer do we have ‘confessions’ based on opinion. I think you have no idea of the depth and longevity of the offence – an observation, not an accusation.
Believing propaganda and acting badly on the basis of it has never been deemed an exonerating factor.
September 13, 2012 at 9:27 am
I suspect that you don’t take the view that culpability of those who herded Jews into the gas chamber is the same as propagandists like Lord Haw Haw.
Yesterday we had confirmation that scores of lives could have been saved after the initial crush if the authorities had acted competently. And we also found out that the coverup was sweeping, and unprecedented. I think it’s clear that actions are more significant.
September 13, 2012 at 9:58 am
But doesn’t Boris Johnson’s apology count all the more for having been made before all of the truth was known? It’s easy to apologise in hindsight.
September 13, 2012 at 10:46 am
Words are a form of action. The man who says: “”Kill!” may be more culpable than the murderer.
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Most of us prefer to blame “the high ups” when things go wrong, ignoring our own sins of omission as well as commission.
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Is not sin a part of the human condition, and so apt to pray for forgiveness? And do not sins in our hearts – not even uttered – form part of that as Jesus pointed out?
September 13, 2012 at 11:40 am
Believing propaganda and acting badly on the basis of it has never been deemed an exonerating factor.
Not so. Maybe not in the UK, but just ninety miles away in Jersey it’s quite another story: local authorities are still asking for investigative journalists to be kept off the island (in some cases by pulling strings to get non-UK journalists’ visas revoked).
It took 23 years but the truth about Hillsborough is now out. The prospect of the truth about Haut de la Garenne and other cases of state-tolerated abuse coming out is still a way off here.
September 13, 2012 at 2:28 pm
If my heart broke yesterday at the news that so many lies could have been saved, I can understand why the relatives reading the report from the panel were overwhelmed. Words do matter but I don’t think I can add many more. Just my prayers for those whose wounds must now be re-opened because of the words written, amended and deleted from the original witness reports.
September 13, 2012 at 4:02 pm
Boris apologises again here: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/9541226/Boris-Johnson-I-am-very-very-sorry-for-false-Hillsborough-allegations.html
Nick attributes the article to him whereas it was written by Simon Heffer. Nevertheless Boris properly didn’t duck any responsibility.
I’m no fan of Boris for various reasons but I’m interested in knowing whether in the light of these new facts he’s forgiveable or still beyond the pale?
September 13, 2012 at 5:47 pm
Andrew, you are right about Boris having offered an apology and I should have asked for a reiteration of that apology in the light of the current facts. The point of my post, however, was to affirm the power of words and the nature of words as action (not a separate category). Sorry to be brief, but I am a bit pushed.
September 13, 2012 at 6:02 pm
Simon Heffer is now said to have written the first draft of this editorial, previously Jessie Johnson had a hand in it. Johnson had no choice of denying responsibility because Michael Howard decided correctly to blame him.
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So far as the Telegraph article constituutes an apology it is obviously not accepted by Liverpudlians vocal on this issue.
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Notable we have heard from Mellor and Tebbit defending the untenable Thatcher position in 1989 and denying that the S Yorks police were protected from further appropriate investigation then.
September 13, 2012 at 6:45 pm
If those busy apologising are forming a queue to be forgiven then it has to be said Johnson’s apology is quite a bit narrower than the slur on the city of Liverpool and ‘many Liverpudlians’, MacKenzie’s is words and nothing, and Cameron’s alone of those I heard sounded the right sort of note (for all I hate what his government is about).
116 of 164 statements ‘substantially altered’ was the line that caught my eye – not by the guys who made them but by their ‘superiors’.
Contributors to a Guardian blog yesterday made points that could suggest that Orgreave and all the circumstances of the miners’ strike had a corrupting effect on South Yorkshire Police – and perhaps on us all – clouding our judgement across class lines. I was a southerner living in South London when all these things happened …
September 13, 2012 at 7:40 pm
Andrew.
You omit to mention that in the link you provided the article states that the editorial was indeed written by Simon Heffer, but it also makes it very clear that he was acting on Boris Johnson’s instructions. So it is quite right, that as editor, Boris did not try and duck responsibility. Why should he?
Also, do you notice a link here…Simon Heffer was a Daily Mail columnist…Kelvin Mckenzie was editor of the Sun. The only newspaper not to make any mention of the report on it’s front page this morning, according to Newsnight last night was…wait for it… the Daily Telegraph!! Surely a common thread there!
Kelvin McKenzie committed a grave sin of commission 23 years ago, surely the Editor of the Telegraph came just as close to committing a sin of omission today!!
As for my reference to absolution…of course I do not think that Boris Johnson is beyond the pale…In some ways (apart from this sorry episode) he has been a breath of fresh air….but the absolution pronounced yesterday wasn’t for alleged “sins” that anybody had committed, it was instead a release from years of guilt that theyhad been disgracefully forced by others to carry…guilt as a result of the actions of people such as Kelvin McKenzie and Irving Pattner, perpetuated by the combined efforts of Simon Heffer and Boris Johnson et al.
Of course forgiveness is possible, but there are still conseqeunces. There are laws of libel, slander and defamation of character on the statue books for very good reasons. How many people before Hillsborough have had their lives ruined, as the Leveson Inquiry has already highlighted, by the disgraceful, sensationalist journalism of McKenzie at al?
There are examples galore of gross perversions of the course of justice. As I type, I have Channel 4 News on where a serving junior police officer on the day, has told of how, as she tried to give her truthful version of events, she was persuaded by a senior officer to say that she wasn’t there on duty on the day at Hillsborough!
Actually Andrew, not only was absolution pronounced yesterday but just before they left the Cathedral there was an unspoken benediction pronounced also to those family memebrs…
“Go in peace” – with a full apology from the Prime Minister ringing in your ears.
“Go in peace” – knowing for sure that you or your relatives are not guilty of what you have been accused of
“”Go in peace” – to seek to have coroner’s verdict quashed.
“Go in peace” – to consider pursuing justice with evidence to back it up and effective tools at your disposal
“Go in peace” – in the knowledge that something much more resembling the truth is now out in the public domain..
…to name but a few…
In short, the values of the Kingdom were well and truly catapulted prophetically and apostolically from inside Liverpool Cathedral right out into the very heart of the public sphere and the Establisment yesterday.
Andrew..yes..”sorry” is very welcome..indeed, the list of “sorrys” is growing by the hour, although not yet from Norman Bettison, nor the coroner Stefan Popper, nor any representative of the South Yorkshire ambulance service…
But this is just a stage further on in the journey we are witnessing..not the destination or “journey’s end” by any means.
September 13, 2012 at 8:46 pm
Sorry, I don’t see the link between kelvin Mackenzie, Mail and today’s Daily Telegraph. Unless of course you’re making a political point. Hillsborough is about injustice, incompetence, inertia and tragedy not about left/right distinctions. It’s about humanity, forgiveness, reconciliation when the facts come into the open as they have under James Jones’ watchful care.
September 13, 2012 at 9:19 pm
But not about justice, accountability and restitution?
September 13, 2012 at 9:25 pm
And I notice that Boris has, indeed, reiterated his apology: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-19589039
September 13, 2012 at 9:37 pm
Restoration, openness, punishment, truthfulness, transformation….. But you know already what reconciliation means – it is never without a cost.
September 13, 2012 at 10:21 pm
Spot on Nick…it is about justice, accountability and indeed restitution….and no ot is not about vengenace or vindictiveness at all..
Andrew, for the more discerning amongst us , there is a need to distinguish between the sincere and genuine apologies and the “saving my own skin.for expediency/survival sake” variety. David Cameron’s apology clearly falls into the former category. I am not a mad fan but I thought he was excellent in the Commons yesterday. Boris Johnson’s sounds genuine, but let’s not forget he has to maintain the momentum following his soar in popularity following the Olympics/Paralympics and there is more than a hint of self-preservation about it still.
This may astound you but I don’t think Dominic Mohan or the current Chief Constable of South Yorkshire have themselves anything personally to apologise for…they are just doing the decent thing. Irvine Pattner’s apology would resemble something more convincing if he hadn’t immediately gone to ground As for the Cororner Stefan Popper, the hierarchy of the South Yorkshire Constabulary at the time still living now, and senior representatitves of the ambulance service at the time, well surely they are guilty of the utmost dereliction of duty that is imaginable.
I am sorry if you seem annoyed at the link between the Sun, Mail and Telegraph, but they do all pursue a very similar political agenda. I actually think the absence of any mention of the report on the front page of the DT this morning was in itself a hugely political point being made by the DT! ie it still doesn;t really matter that much and is not really that newsworthy.
Having said that I guess someone at the DT has had a word in their beloved Editor’s ear because tonight’s online version of the paper has a much more comprehensive and balanced approach, which is good to see, including a disturbing report on how Bishop James Jones had to fight robustly tooth and nail with Coalition minsiters for public money to continue to be given to allow the report to continue its work to completion!
September 13, 2012 at 11:12 pm
I’m not annoyed at the political point you make. Just confirmed for me that in some of the comments there’s something else going on.
Thankfully neither you nor I have to make a discernment about the apologies. They’re addressed to the survivors and those bereaved.
September 14, 2012 at 3:19 pm
Bishop James Jones tells of the ‘dark times’ in the two and a half yeaers quest for the truth about Hillsborough.
http://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/liverpool-news/local-news/2012/09/12/bishop-james-jones-hillsborough-panel-will-shine-a-light-in-the-darkness-100252-31818108/
September 14, 2012 at 8:28 pm
Johnson’s first apology was at the direction of Michael Howard: apologise and humble yourself to Liverpool or be sacked from your Shadow ministerial job. It wasn’t fulsome enough to satisfy many.
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The reiteration isn’t convincing either, because again it is decidedly under duress.
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The original editorial piece in the Spectator was an attempt to look down on Liverpudlians and a whole imagined sector of Britons, almost as though they are a separate race from people like Johnson and Heffer.
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I don’t think it will be easy to apologise for that. He’d need to understand what he was doing to begin with.
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I do feel sorry for him. I wish I could change as much as he needs to.
September 14, 2012 at 9:51 pm
I was travelling in the car with my then young teenagers, listening to the car radio- The commentary and unfolding events of that football disaster were as terrible as when Piper Alpha blew or HMS Sheffield was sunk or even the Lockerbie bombing.
There are so many horrors that one hears about, but the worst is knowing that there are victims, many of them.
It is so overwhelming.
I think we were all indirectly involved- one just can’t turn the radio off to blot out the terror of the victims and commentators. It must have been hell on earth for all involved.
September 14, 2012 at 10:50 pm
“there’s something else going on.”
Very profound words Andrew..indeed almost prophetic in their accuracy.
Why this is so important is that in government papers revealed under the 30 year rule earlier this year, the people of Liverpool learnt that there was a plan at Cabinet level to deliberately allow Liverpool to go into “managed decline” as part of Government policy. There was clearly “something else going on…”
Then we learn this week that immediately after the events at Hillsborough took place, an MP and the South Yorkshire police were briefing an editor of a national newspaper what turned out to be a pack of lies which was then portrayed as “the truth” about Hillsborough and believed by millions. There was clearly “something else going on”.
In the House of Commons this week, I have heard numerous reporters say that there wEre gasps of astonishent and disbelief when David Cameron revealed to the House that 164 police statements had been altered…116 of them significantly so. There was clearly “something else going on”.
The report cleary states that the Prime Minister at the time was clearly briefed that the actions of South Yorkshire Police bordered on “deceitful”, yet took no decisive action, seemingly preferring to protect the repuattion and “integrity” of the police, rather than protect the citizens who had suffered so much and who were most directly affected. Surely, there was clearly “someting else going on” .
I have read a prominent barrister state that the report has lifted the lid on the biggest cover up in British legal history. Clealry there was “something else going on”
Your comments confirm to me that you appear to be more disturbed and concerned about what you believe to be the motivation behind some of the comments, than you are about what we all now know has actually been going on ever since the events of Hillsborough took place, and the dubious motivation of those who were involved in those activities.
As for the relatives’ discernment re the apologies, well Trevor Hicks has said that Kelvin McKenzies words were “too little, too late” and referred to him as “low-life”, and on behalf of the families refused to allow any Sun journalists to attend the Press Conference afterwards. Meanwhile the determination of Norman Bettison to not only refuse to apologise but to also stoke up the flames even further with additional comments, simply beggars belief, and has been very poorly received by the families of those directly affected.
September 15, 2012 at 9:58 am
Scouserphil is wrong about me. I have always followed the Hillsborough story with interest because I was so shocked about the loss of life. Thank goodness that in the immediate aftermath, the recommendations of the Taylor report saved countless other lives. Now at last – far too late – we are beginning to see the whole truth emerge – the most shocking revelation is the confirmation that 41 lives could have been saved. I don’t think there is any place left to hide from the truth. And if the inquest is not opened and prosecutions do not take place then there will be a national outcry. I’m a free speech defender and I can’t view the focus on Johnson and Mackenzie as anything other than sideshows to the more important agenda of a proper inquest and a legal route forward.
September 15, 2012 at 10:50 am
Andrew, sideshows are not merely incidental. I think you observe from a distance; some of us are in it.
September 15, 2012 at 11:38 am
But what can you do about free speech without putting restrictions in place?The people of Liverpool don’t get to make those choices for all of us even though they’ve experienced great pain and affront. In fact it seems to me that they’ve already demonstrated a way forward through voting with their wallets against The Sun.
September 15, 2012 at 12:08 pm
Andrew, what’s this got to do with free speech? It has a lot to do with accountability for speech – and suggests that journalism in particular ought to pay more attention to verifiable fact than prejudiced surmising. You are right about the Sun, but that doesn’t say all that has to be said.
September 15, 2012 at 12:33 pm
My attempts to reply to fellow posters list as new posts, but “free speech” has featured in several posts so:
Much of the time newspapers like The Sun, owned and controlled in its general direction by a super rich foreigner, maintains the freedom to abuse.
Even now the Sun’s front page apology occupied less than a quarter of its front page, the abuse 23 years ago all as I recall. (I see it on news stands only I might add)
The sideshows evidence inordinate injustices, and apologies without changes are the politeness of determined recidivists.
September 15, 2012 at 1:21 pm
Well I guess I get a little nervous when I see words placed on a par with actions in this context. You can do something about corruption, negligence and injustic even belatedly. What can you do about the things that are said or written – especially when the possibility of accepting apologies seems to be more or less ruled out in some cases?
September 15, 2012 at 2:26 pm
You still miss the point I was making – that words are actions. That remains true without going into hierarchies of virtue or moral equivalence.
September 15, 2012 at 2:38 pm
Andrew
I think it is really interesting that you refer to the pain and affront suffered by the people of Liverpool. Your comment “Scouserphil” is wrong about me” and the susbsequent passionate defence of your position (which was great to hear btw) is surely an indication of how awful it feels to be misrepresented. Your feeling of me “getting you wrong” certainly elicited a strong response from yourself, but it pales into insignificance in comparison to the misrepresentation that primarily the victims of the families have suffered, but also, by association, citizens of Liverpool in general have also had to endure.
Nick…your comment in #33 re journalists paying more attention to verifiable fact is absolutely spot on. I did my usual weekly scan online of both the Church Times and the Church of England Newspaper this morning. The Church Times carries a balanced and proportionate report but there is not even a mention in passing on the CEN website. This is a report chaired by a leading Church of England Bishop, which has huge ramifications and led to an immediate statement in Parliament from the Prime Minister and the CEN doesn’t even mention it in passing! Given what we now know, it would be interesting to know exactly what goes in news/editorial boadrooms at times…as it would appear that at times it is a different planet altogether than the one most of us inhabit.
Also Nick’s comment in #31 regarding the difference from being “it it” and commenting from a distance is very perceptive. That is not to say those at a distance do not feel as appalled at what has gone on as those closer at hand do – they undoubtedly do – but for those of us who know people directly affected by this, or have ministered to people, or have affected relatives in their congregations/parishes it is a different matter altogether. For Nick himself it is even more difficult….he still has family members and friends in Liverpool , but also Norman Bettison is now the Chief Constable of th area which probably covers most or all of his Diocese, and with who at a Civic level Nick probably meets on a regular basis. Couldn’t be much more “in it” than that really as the repercussions begin to unfold.
Andrew..where you and I agree very much is that the most shocking revelation is that there is a possibility that up to 41 people could possibly have been saved…and that only 1 out of 40 ambulances that were there actually were present at the ground were at the Leppings Lane End. I simply can’t get my head around that. so I can’t even begin to imagine how the relatives must be coping with that information.
As for the free speech argument… surely there have to be some limits, within reason, to what can be said or printed, not just be newspapers but by all of us in general. One of the advances of recent times which we can be most proud of is that previously vile racist, sexist and homophobic speech/comments are no longer deemed acceptable.
And no…that is not “political correctness gone mad”, it is standing up for what is humanly decent and right, and affording people made in Gid’s image the dignity and respect that they deserve.
September 15, 2012 at 8:33 pm
A friend has just posted this link of Facebook. I thought I’d pass it on here;_
http://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/liverpool-news/in-the-mix/2012/09/14/poet-laureate-carol-ann-duffy-writes-exclusive-poem-for-the-liverpool-echo-inspired-by-the-hillsborough-report-100252-31831715/