Billy Bragg debuted a new song on stage this weekend, a throwback to the topical political tunes of his youth. Titled “Never Buy the Sun,” it’s a commentary on the scandals currently engulfing the British tabloids owned by Rupert Murdoch’s News International.
If you haven’t been following that story, it’s a doozy. For several years now, it’s been known that the weekly News of the World tabloid had illegally hacked into certain celebrities’ voicemail messages as part of its newsgathering operations. But in the last few weeks that story has been completely transformed, as the full scope of the hacking and related misbehavior has come to light.
First it was revealed that the paper gained access to the cellphone voicemail of teenaged murder victim Milly Dowler while Dowler was still missing. Journalists at the time went so far as to delete messages from the system in an effort to free up space for more incoming calls, leading Dowler’s parents to conclude that their child was still alive and checking her phone. It has also been suggested that the deletions misled police as to the facts of the crime, hindering their investigation, and may even have destroyed evidence in the case.
Not long after the Milly Dowler story broke, it was charged that News of the World had hacked into the phones of British servicemembers who had been killed in action, and into those of relatives of victims of the terrorist bombings that struck London on July 7, 2005. More recently, it’s been learned that the paper had made a habit of bribing police officials for tips, and just today, a series of revelations emerged about how papers throughout the News International organization targeted former British Prime Minister Gordon Brown and his family.
This is a huge scandal in Britain right now — it’s already led to the permanent closure of News of the World and several high-profile arrests, and it’s been compared to Watergate in its potential scope and significance.
Which brings us back to Billy Bragg. Billy’s been a political songwriter for a very long time now, and about a quarter century ago he wrote a song about the British tabloids called “It Says Here.” He’d been messing around with an updated version over the last week or so, but kept finding that new developments were overtaking his songwriting, so eventually he wound up putting together something completely new — “Never Buy the Sun.”
“Never Buy the Sun” is a good song, but its title, and its most repeated lyric — Scousers never buy the Sun — depend on a bit of knowledge of British history that most Americans don’t have. Here’s the skinny:
On April 15, 1989, Liverpool’s local football (soccer) team was playing an important game at Hillsborough Stadium, a neutral venue. At the time, Hillsborough — like many British stadiums — had non-reserved seating and high fences between the stands and the playing field. There was a big crowd for that day’s match, and a bottleneck developed at the entrances at the Liverpool end of the field. Large numbers of fans remained outside even after the game began, and when police opened a small gate to eject a fan, some members of the crowd surged forward. In response, the police opened several larger exit gates to serve as an additional entrance, without putting crowd control measures in place to direct foot traffic. As a result, thousands of fans pressed forward into stands that had no room to accommodate them, and those in the front had no ability to leave — or even move — when they began to be crushed by those behind. Ninety-six people were killed in the crush, one of the worst such disasters in British history.
Four days after the Hillsborough Disaster, the Sun newspaper — like the News of the World, a part of Murdoch’s News International empire — ran a front-page story claiming that as events were unfolding, Liverpool fans attacked and urinated on police who were trying to bring events under control, sexually abused the body of a girl who had died in the crush, and picked the pockets of the dead.
These were all lies.
The Sun did not immediately retract its story, and the paper has subsequently veered between apology and justification. Sales of the paper in Liverpool plummeted in the wake of of the incident, and have never — twenty-two years later — recovered. Today Liverpool is one of Britain’s largest cities and the Sun is one of the country’s best-selling newspapers, but only a few thousand copies of the paper are sold in Liverpool each day. Many newsstands won’t even carry it.
In local slang, a person from Liverpool is called a Scouser.
And Scousers never buy the Sun.
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July 11, 2011 at 1:33 pm
Well It's just Me
It is wonderful that you have taken the time to explain the situation and news events so concisely and carefully and to relay them so well. It’s easy when in your own country to forget that people in other countries may wish to read blogs .and not know the facts to relate to. I know that it is mostly the U.S. citizens that blog on Word[ress. Hillsborough was a chilling event to watch and never should have happened. I’m from the North but not Liverpool. I wouldn’t even eat my chips (an old tradition) if it were from that paper. As it is, I don’t ever buy any tabloids … it’s much more reliable to view the news in other sources. Cheers! for the post. It’s good to know that musicians will always be putting their messages across – love them or hate them – it’s one form of expression that will always be easy to relate to.
July 11, 2011 at 6:57 pm
Graham
Nice blog and well explained why we don’t buy that rag. Just a couple of things, Hillsborough was not a home match, it was a neutral venue for a semi final. And the police didn’t open the gates to throw someone out first. They opened to relieve pressure outside but without thinking of consequences, as you said putting crowd control measures in place. They then lied and briefed the Sun that the fans had forced their way in and broke the fence down.
July 12, 2011 at 11:11 am
Angus Johnston
Thanks for the clarification, Graham. I’ve fixed the home/neutral thing. From what I’ve read, though, the cops did open one small gate to remove someone before opening the other gates.
July 12, 2011 at 7:13 pm
Bob
Angus,
I am a Liverpool fan of over 36 years standing and this is the first time I have heard comment about a fan being excluded through a gate outside the Lepping’s Lane stand causing the problem. It has always been said by eye witnesses that the delay in policing people into the ground caused a crush outside that was relieved by opening the gates all at once and letting the fans crush in en masse into an area that funnelled into a smaller area and caused the crush. This could all have been avoided with proper policing-it only required police/stewards to direct fans to the right or the left where two other access tunnels were located that led to near empty terraces. The fans that day were no more to blame for the disaster than passengers on a crashed aeroplane. Proper policing/piloting that day would have saved 96 lives and tons of depression/guilt. And still the police blamed the fans for their inadequacies and still the Sun newspaper has not made amends for the lies it published to make money. The Daily Star, which published the same story, did apologise unconditionally a few days later but even today, McKenzie who, was the editor of the Sun at the time, will not apologise. Hence ‘The Scousers never buy the Sun’ is largely correct. Can I also add that quite a few non-Scousers also never buy it.
July 12, 2011 at 7:47 pm
Bob
Angus,
Another thing I should clarify is that back in 1989 football fans were treated like cattle by the police (and society in general to be fair) and a penning policy was used to stop fans from getting out and potentially getting on the pitch. So to explain, at the Leppings Lane End (the small end of the ground given to Liverpool fans even though Liverpool had way more travelling fans than Nottingham Forest) there was an elevated all seater stand and in front of it a standing terrace. Access to this standing terrace was by 3 tunnels which went under the elevated stand. The terrace was split into three pens and one tunnel accessed each pen. There was no way of getting from one pen/cage to another pen/cage apart from leaving by the entry tunnel and then going in another entry tunnel. Most of the fans who had arrived earlier had gone in the central pen/cage because it was behind the goal and afforded the best view. These fans had no way of leaving and could not spread right or left to relieve pressure because of the cattle pen system. The fans who came later were not directed away from the centre as they should have been and so 96 innocent people died. One fan climbed out of the crush over the cage fence and staggered onto the pitch and remonstrated with a policeman saying ‘people are dying in there’ and got thrown back into the cage (maybe this is what you have got confused with in your blog?)
Then the Sun published its lies to sell a few more papers and has never been brought to account. Maggie Thatcher blamed the fans also and whitewashed the police actions. So you can see why 22 years later, Liverpool fans welcome the irony of the situation that a former News Of The World editor who is now David Cameron’s spin doctor is being questioned by the police over questionable practices. We have the moral high ground now and it is the tabloid press being cast as lowlifes! For the first time there is a chance that justice can be seen to be done for all the innocents involved in all these sleazy affairs. Which of your presidents said you can fool some people all of the time and some of the peole some of the time but you can’t fool all of the scousers at any time?
By the way Angus, I should say that your Blog is an excellent summary in the main part of what is/was going on and I hope I have added additional useful info for your perusal.
July 14, 2011 at 4:15 pm
Never Buy the Sun | Happy Valley News Hour
[…] has infected the Murdoch empire. The lyric is “Scousers never buy The Sun,” of which some background here: “Never Buy the Sun” is a good song, but its title, and its most repeated lyric — Scousers […]
July 17, 2011 at 1:26 pm
Sunday Reading « zunguzungu
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August 1, 2011 at 3:44 pm
Angus Johnston
Belated thanks for your helpful comments, Bob. Much appreciated.
August 4, 2011 at 9:11 am
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