I admit before I begin, I detest football. Everything about it deters me. The hooliganism. The fact that footballers are paid in a week what no doctor could earn in a year. The fact that young boys aspire to be womanising, drunk delinquents.
But one thing I dislike even more than football, is something even some football fans would agree with me on: right-wing tabloid newspapers. Yes, I include The Daily Mail in this. I doubt any football fan from the north-west will forget Hillsborough, where 96 football fans were crushed to death. Before any further evidence is given for the case I am making, whatever happened, 96 human beings perished that day.
The Sun then decided to a run a story on the tragedy the following day. Their Truth, consisted of unnamed police sources and a Tory MP claiming drunken Liverpool fans urinated on the dead, picked their pockets, and attacked "courageous" policemen who were trying to help. This was further from the Truth than The Sun even could understand.
Officials simply refused to accept responsibility for the tragedy, and as the real truth began to reveal itself, the editor of the paper was forced to apologise by the Big Boss Murdoch. Except he then back-tracked his apology at a private dinner. Kevin MacKenzie, who had chosen to run the headline that day as editor was overhead saying "All I did wrong was tell the truth... I was not sorry then and I'm not sorry now."
Unfrickenbelievable, but yet so believable at the same time. I fully support the city of Liverpool never picking up another copy of that paper again. What shocks me is that they would actually choose to bite the hand that feeds them - 8,000 copies of it were sold in that area that day, and 3 million in total nationally.
Meanwhile, The Daily Mail seem to be up to the same antics as ever. They greet the news of the cervical cancer vaccine with scaremongering headlines such as "Alert over jabs for girls as two die following cervical cancer vaccination". Pffft. Meanwhile in Great Britain, what the Middle-England female estimated to be around 35-50 years old doesn't know is that over in Ireland, The Irish Daily Mail, those lovely people, are "campaigning vigorously" for the vaccine - because the government refused to fund it. How very noble of them.
I am one of those people who judges you by what national you read, I'm afraid. So if you happen to be seen reading The Sun, The Daily Express, The Daily Mail, The Daily Star or The Daily Telegraph, on your daily commute to work, don't be surprised if people raise any eyebrow or two at you. Because they will simply be thinking, "Well, I can't say I'm at all surprised if I'm being honest."
