It’s because of Desperate Scousewives these days, innit.

Never been to Liverpool myself, but would really like to. When my health improves. Would like to see Manchester and Leeds as well. Only place I’ve been to north of Derbyshire is York.

Every UK city, including London, has good and bad bits.The political classes might write off the North but I reckon they write off plenty of their own cities as well. How many in the media have been to Walthamstow, Tottenham or Dagenham, for example?

I’m sure Liverpool isn’t all Croxteth and Norris Green. The views over the Mersey look lovely.

“something that obviously isn’t going to happen under the ConDems.”

Well, I’d give them credit for at least trying to rebalance the economy away from the south east (albeit on sufferance on the part of the tories).

In contrast, Labour had 13 years and didn’t really manage much more than spending millions on beautifying city centres while the enclaves of real poverty and deprivation remained unchanged. If I were you I’d wait and see how the coalition does in tackling it rather than writing them off before they’ve even had as much of a third of the time to tackle the problem as your favourite party did.

And, please correct me if I’m wrong, but didn’t Liverpool have a Lib Dem council throughout that period of 5.5% growth?

Somethi g from my memory:

As a Tottenham fan I have only ever wanted Arsenal to win one game. It was the last match of the season in 1989 when Arsenal were playing away at Liverpool and needed to win to take the First Divisision which would have otherwise gone to Liverpool.

It was the season of the dreadful Hillsborough disaster. Enough of a reason to provide the goodwill for fans of neither to support Liverpool. But I was fed up to the back teeth with seemingly ceaseless drivel about irrepressable Liverpool spirit, Liverpool humour and Liverpool’s honesty.

To my experience (having worked there) there was an overabundance of whinging skivers who wallowed in their grievances – usually about anyone or anything from outside the city not being the “genuine article”. This permeated the culture of the city.

So, when Michael Thomas ran the length of the pitch and scored in the final minutes I celebrated – it reinstated London as the home of the best teams and gave Liverpool fans yet another thing to feel sorry about (not forgetting they had dominated the English League for 20 years).

The population is so large in England I believe it is now right to have regional assemblies with greater clout than the local councils have for their areas and also something to challenge the dominance of London in this country. Scotland is better for their parliament and other countries have federal or regional assemblies that can challenge the dominance of a specific area.

As for London and the Tories trying to ignore Liverpool, they also ignore any large area that do not support them such as Scotland, the welsh valleys, Manchester the North East and so on. They are the masters of divide and rule.

The Liverpool thing stands out pretty starkly, but it’s always been pretty obvious that the Tories view the UK as a life support system for London and the south east of England.

What is Liverpool like? Well, after Iain Dale made his less than felicitous comments about the city around the time of this year’s Labour conference, I took him to task in two posts illustrated with views of the city and Birkenhead:

http://zelo.tv/oM1kJU
http://zelo.tv/qOekea

so you can see for yourself.

@5 Steve

There isn’t much appetite for regional assemblies in most of England I reckon, even in areas like the NE and Yorks which have some semblance of regional awareness or self-identity.

Since independence for Scotland looks increasingly likely, the question is what will happen to the UK when the Union breaks up? England is and always has been dominated by London and the SE, and highly centralised to boot – successive governments have failed to address and/or encouraged this. Of course the usual right wing carpet biters go on about the subsidy junkies in the North and the Celtic fringe, when in fact it is the SE and London which is over subsidised.

Perhaps when England is faced with a future as a minor player it will eventually realise that it needs to get real about devolution, decentralisation, and promoting growth for the whole country not just the Home Counties. I wouldn’t all hang by the thumbs mind you…!

@ 3 George

“And, please correct me if I’m wrong, but didn’t Liverpool have a Lib Dem council throughout that period of 5.5% growth?”

If so, I hope the memory keeps you and the dwindling band of LD’s cosy George… as it isn’t too likely you’ll have control of much in local government or nationally over coming years is it?

What are the polls looking like now….?

Well if I were to lay the claim that the Tories are in thrall to their Murdoch paymasters, their animus toward Liverpool (where the Sun famously cannot shift too many copies) would be one point in my favour.

London’s problem with Liverpool is also London’s problem with Leeds, Tyneside and Cornwall. Namely, that England is a heavily over-centralised polity. In the same way that we supposedly can’t have a democratically-elected second chamber because it would impinge in some nebulous way on the ‘sovereignty’ or ‘legitimacy’ of the House Of Spivs, seemingly those parts of England outside the Golden Circle must not, on any account, be given any real freedom to determine their own priorities for fear that they might be rather better at it than diktats imposed from WC1, and thereby show up centralised rule for the three-party trick that it usually is.

@7 Galen 10

Is it that England is overdominated by the SE, or that it is overdominated (and things are arranged for the convenience of) the money mob in (which is based in the SE ie the City)? Cities like Liverpool and, especially, Manchester, used to be extremely wealthy – just look at the civic buildings in either – based on actually doing things, not just juggling figures, and had a lot of political clout – but over generations, the money (and the clout) seems to leech away to the financial parasites.

@11 David

I think it is both. The levers of political and economic power lie overwhelmingly in the SE and London, which benefit disproportionately from government spending and investment. The UK isn’t alone in that of course… the same can be said of other countries.

The problem for the North of England especially (altho other regions like the SW and Midlands also suffer I’m sure) is how it responds to that.

we have read the information so this information all accurate but a ‘deeply unattractive psyche.this company are excellent information submit the whole young generation.we should share about the information with my family.

I lived in Liverpool for 4 years and it really is a disgusting toilet.

Yes but that growth was paid for by taking money form the South East and bunging it at Public Services and assorted development crap all of which turns out to be worthless,surprise surprise.
I have a job that takes me around the UK and I can promise you that many in Liverpool also despise the Liverpool of boring old Ostlers dreary dreams. That Liverpool celebrates idle dishonest self indulgent untrustworthy chancers. Perfect fodder for New Labour multi generational welfare. Nationally cheeky slaves, comically sly servants.Its a little bit of Ireland over here, without the charm.

Actually there is a normal Liverpool full of sensible aspirational people like anyone else. They are not on the TV and they often do move away.

Apart from Johnson not having written that stuff about Liverpool wallowing in its own self-pity, and apart from Howe and Joseph never having “advised Margaret Thatcher to abandon that beastly city altogether”, a spot on start.

Paul Newman: That Liverpool celebrates idle dishonest self indulgent untrustworthy chancers.

Really? Or have you been re-watching Bread on Dave Ja Vu? The media stereotype of Liverpool as being full of working-class scallies is also the city which offered the backdrop to Bleasdale’s The Boys from the Blackstuff, probably the best artistic response then and now to the impact of Thatcher’s policies of the 1980s. The Tories had a problem with any centre of power they didn’t control (Labour-run local authorities, the GLC, ILEA), so Liverpool was just as much an ‘enemy within’ as the miners, Brixton or Scotland.

Population is so large in England and I believe it is now right to have regional assemblies! Liverpool recorded annual economic growth of 5.5%, the best performance of anywhere outside London.

Liverpool is alright and a fun place, thats if you know how to have fun.

Problem is the entire United Kingdom is slowly going down the toilet. Even worse Politicians are a bad example to the entire country. They are liars, deceitful, hypocrites and have no moral compass or respect.

Liverpool is paradise in comparison to Parliament !

As for Boris Johnson he is just another prevaricating liar that was sacked by Micheal Howard (fellow Tory) from an high profile post.

Howe actually employed the expression ‘managed decline’, before duplicitously warning everyone else against using such a scandalous locution in the public’s earshot. Thanks to the 30 year rule, the gaffe is now public. Be sure your sin will find you out.

How is it a gaffe? It is not even rude. Such pathetic shaming tactics just continue the sad tradition of driving honesty out of British politics. There was and is nothing remotely wrong with that expression.

What you do not note is that Thatcher’s government exempted Liverpool from cuts which meant that the Liberal administration had, what?, something like 25% more money to play with than similar administrations.

What changed matters was decades of decline, and not particularly managed decline at that.

Something that long pre-dated Thatcher. Containerisation did for the docks. We joined the EU and moved away from the Atlantic world so that ports that faced the Atlantic were less relevant. Militant. There are plenty of non-Tory reasons.

I have a job that regularly takes me to various European capitals, and sometimes to the Middle East and the Far East. So it is that I have been to St Petersburg, but never to St Helens; to Tokyo, but never to Toxteth; to Warsaw, but never to Wallasey.

Because the Russians, the Arabs and the Chinese are creating jobs. They are building new industries. Merseyside is not. They are rotting on welfare.

Essentially, the document demanded mass migration from Liverpool, Bradford and Sunderland to the bottom right-hand corner of the country.

Bound to happen.

What I do know is that under Labour, Liverpool recorded annual economic growth of 5.5%, the best performance of anywhere outside London. Yet even that seems not to have eradicated some of the deep seated social problems on the Mersey.

You are putting the cart before the horse, it is the deep-seat social problems of the feral underclass that is preventing economic growth. Economic growth is not an act of God, it is not a feature of nature and it is not a product of government. It is the result of hundreds of people, usually a tiny minority, working hard to do something new and worthwhile. It is caused by people taking risks to build up their businesses. Something Merseyside is particularly opposed to.

And what I also know is that writing off entire swathes of the north to ‘managed decline’ is wrong in principle. What is needed is a regional policy that offers a strategy for managed revival, something that obviously isn’t going to happen under the ConDems.

Why is it wrong? What could such a policy possibly look like? If the people of Liverpool do not want to create new jobs, they won’t. End of story.

Paul Newman @half-cock as usual:

“That Liverpool celebrates idle dishonest self indulgent untrustworthy chancers.”

Should fit in well in EC4 then…

The current support from the city for Luis Suarez is particularly odious, and a good enough reason to see this again http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L85wbuePV8w

Mind you, the Beatles weren’t half good.

Paul Newman re comment 16:

Spot on, especially the last paragraph.

London has a Conservative mayor who famously accused Liverpool of displaying a ‘deeply unattractive psyche’, and even of ‘wallowing in its victim status’.

Boris was right. Far too many Scousers alternate seamlessly between sucking noisily on the teat of whining victimhood and loudly boasting how very special they are, oh so superior to us ordinary mortals. It’s a tribal character which may produce some passable stand-up comedians but it is indeed deeply unattractive.

As far as my “provincial” credentials are concerned, incidentally, I’m a Manc living in London.

As to Geoffrey Howe counselling furtive discretion about keeping the proposed policy away from public knowledge, does the name Neather mean anything to you? Just asking.

Untold billions have been “invested” in Liverpool by the government over the decades. If that really was such a wise investment, Liverpool must surely have been saved by now, so the flow of public money can be stopped.

@5. Steve: “The population is so large in England I believe it is now right to have regional assemblies with greater clout than the local councils have for their areas and also something to challenge the dominance of London in this country.”

@11. The Judge: “London’s problem with Liverpool is also London’s problem with Leeds, Tyneside and Cornwall. Namely, that England is a heavily over-centralised polity.”

@19. henryman: “Population is so large in England and I believe it is now right to have regional assemblies!”

And noting Galen10′s contributions.

The problem is that many London politicians do not want regional assemblies. They prefer the power to appoint nominees to quangos that administer services and agencies outside London. Thus we had New Labour acting in the most despicable fashion when proffering an assembly for the North East of England whilst denying it any significant role, a role to vote for in a referendum. The referendum result was defined by the question: why bother?

Is regional government expensive? Yes, and so are quangos. To afford regional government (and to provide a role for it), we have to get rid of quangos.

It is undeniable that regional identity in England rarely extends much beyond county. The metropolitan authorities created in the 1970s were logical entities — they made sense geographically and, to varying extents, culturally. But they delivered political chieftainships — centralised and managerial — which was always going to be wrong. And to define regions for the basis of regional government will be problematic. That is not a sufficient reason to oppose regional democracy.

@ 25

Are you hoping that the Londoncentric nature of the blogosphere will mean that people see your comments as objective as opposed to being part of a long pattern of rivalry between Mancs and Scousers?

Actually, you may well be right on that.

Naturally, as a Brummie living in West Yorkshire, I think you’re both a load of flashy sods.

@ 18.

You are of course aware that Bleasdale wrote Blackstuff in the 70′s when Callaghan was the PM.

Does any and every city, town and village deserve to be “saved” from adverse change? And at what cost?

@28

Well… not many people would admit to being Brummie so it’s understandable

I’m not sure if being exiled to West Yorkshire counts as a step up, or a step down..?

As an expat Scot on the balmy south coast, I can however confirm that the local yokels here know very little, and care a good deal less, about anything north of….hmmnnn…. I’d say Oxford-ish.

The trouble for the centre-left in England, and especially the parts outside the SE and midlands not dominated by the Tories, is what are you going to do when Alex Salmond’s dreams come true (whether independence or devolution max) and all those Scottish Labour MP’s at Westimnster disappear?!

@ 31

Hey, we’re England’s second city, y’know. And we gave the world Jasper Carrot :-p

Your point about Scottish devolution/independence is an interesting one. I know that when I lived in Newcastle I frequently heard the view that “if Scotland fucks off we want to go with them, not London”. Pub talk, so nothing that we can draw firm conclusions from. But interesting, all the same.

@31. Galen10: “The trouble for the centre-left in England, and especially the parts outside the SE and midlands not dominated by the Tories, is what are you going to do when Alex Salmond’s dreams come true (whether independence or devolution max) and all those Scottish Labour MP’s at Westimnster disappear?!”

As you have addressed earlier, we need to be a bit more English Lib Dems will suffer most from the absence of Scots MPs. Lib Dem Scots MPs tend to be the smart buggers.

@33

Perhaps they’ll all migrate south then..? I hear from home a recent poll in scotland put LD support at 1%…….!!

It couldn’t happen to a nicer bunch of people

As someone who divides his time between Liverpool and Manchester I look forward to London sinking beneath the waves.

@ Galen10

The Lib Dems are on 15% nationally according to the most recent ICM poll for the Guardian, so I don’t know what you’re going on about.

The problem with Liverpool and most other Northern cities is that they don’t have a viable private sector base. People/families there don’t value qualifications (real ones, not “equal opportunities with a major in hairdressing”) enough to study hard at school – the figures for the most downbeat cities always show poor educational achievement. That means a low skills base so no-one wants to locate there. Pretty simple. You can pump all the public sector money you like into an area and tart it up, but if it isn’t home to profitable, growing private sector businesses, it’s just going to die. Labour never understood that basic point and still doesn’t.

Anyone who posts here saying that London gains wealth from other areas is just talking a load of rubbish. We pay massively more in tax than any other area – anything from corporation tax, capital gains tax, stamp duty, income tax etc etc. If you look at the public spending side of our economy, it is only around 30% compared with 60%+ in many areas of the north. The figures clearly show you are just wrong. Stop blaming everyone else for your problems and start forcing your kids to study harder in school and value proper education in difficult subjects like languages and sciences. That is what will help build valuable skills and so production, exports and wealth. State spending isn’t going to do that for you.

Your mistake, of course, is to imagine that “principle” matters a bean in a world run by the free market. However “wrong in principle” something may be, what the free market wants the free market gets. So a widening north/south divide is inevitable, along with a widening gap between rich and poor, privileged and deprived. That’s just how the market works.

I am not sure how many other web design businesses in Liverpool share my feelings but whilst being proud of our heritage and loving our location in the Wirral the mention of Liverpool in any of our publicity will immediately reduce the amount of work we get from the “South” to the extent that we have considered changing our keyword strategy this year.

Something does need to be done to enhance the image of this wonderful city and maybe during this new year business owners can join together in promoting Liverpool as “the place to be” in terms of commerce and creativity. Launching a “the place to be logo” on all of our websites might influence more Southerners to utilise our many skills and talents but putting Liverpool on the map in this way will certainly influence the rest of the world.

There is no doubt that we live and work in the most advanced technological era ever and the power of the world wide web is here to stay. Maybe we can do what the the politicians have failed to achieve.

That editorial was, famously, written by Simon Heffer.

@36 Robert C

It’s a pity that your stated regard for education seems not to have helped you analyse data or even trawl google with any level of skill…. sounds like you’d fit in right well “pop North”!

The UK Polling report consistently shows the LD’s hovering around 9-11% nationally, and has done for months. In current situation, that probably represents their core level of support given the mass defection of most of their left of centre voters since the GE. One ICM poll for 15% is almost certainly an outlier, altho’ I can see how the rump of “bitter enders” in the party would want to talk them up to the heady heights of 15%!

A Daily Record poll as far back as July had the LD’s in Scotland on 3%, with an average of around 7% over a longer period. The Holyrood elections last year were a disaster for the LD’s… in many areas they were lucky to get 2.5% of the vote, and of their 5 MSP’s 4 came from the regional lists, only 1 from the constituency list. I can’t find the 1% poll rating at present…. I knew I should have saved the link, but it’ll surface soon enough. Even if it is an outlier however, the LD’s prospects in Scotland are woeful.

As to your old chestnut about London and the SE being hard done by…. it ain’t necessarily so, as as has frequently been discussed here and elsewhere. The SE and the City enjoy huge structural subsidies, and as has been demonstrated in recent times Scotland has been more than paying its way. It’s a simple enough fact that poorer, more remote and more rural parts of any country will need more spent on them than places like the SE of england… same goes for Germany, France, the USA… no surprise there. The surprise is that ignoramuses like you still come on line and spew the same old guff about feckless Northerners being under-educated and living on subsidies from the bright shining SE.

If people were talking about Blacks or Jews the way some people on here are discussing Liverpudlians, they’d be banned in a thrice. Does the comments policy at LC give commenters a free run at anyone with roots in the North West, or what?

[36] “People/families there (Liverpool) don’t value qualifications” – yes, I was saying exactly the same thing to John Birt, Simon Rattle, Sir Richard Glazebrook and William Gladstone, all qualification hating Liverpudlians.

By the way, are the blacks there lazy, jews greedy, and the Irish t’ick?

@ 31:

“As an expat Scot on the balmy south coast, I can however confirm that the local yokels here know very little, and care a good deal less, about anything north of….hmmnnn…. I’d say Oxford-ish.”

But that’s true of many if not most people in the UK. I’ve met many people in Scotland who’ve never been to England, though they’ve been to the Spanish Costas; and I’ve employed people in East Anglia who’ve never been to Norwich or Cambridge, though they’ve been to Turkey via Stansted.

“The trouble for the centre-left in England, and especially the parts outside the SE and midlands not dominated by the Tories, is what are you going to do when Alex Salmond’s dreams come true (whether independence or devolution max) and all those Scottish Labour MP’s at Westimnster disappear?!”

Well, I will be very sorry to see Scotland leave the Union; but if that’s the democratic wish of Scotland, so be it. Many of us in England would be sorry to see you go.

As a small but new nation, your new elite will be initially courted and then treated contemptuously. Outside of the UK, Scotland will count for little. You will be just one more satellite and client state of the Franco-German empire that is the EU. And Scotland will become one more tiny nation in the world – with less punch in the EU than (say) Slovakia, and down there with (say) Tonga otherwise ; but, hey, you’ll be ‘independent’!

Economically, GDP per capita will rise In England & Wales if Scotland leaves the union. With a Tory majority for the forseeable future, the UK minus Scotland would probably do very well. With immigration – which the SNP does not like – England’s population will grow, and it might well be Europe’s largest economy by 2050….

@43 TONE

“But that’s true of many if not most people in the UK.”

I’m sure that’s true up to appoint..but in my experience a lot more common in England south of the Humber.

“Many of us in England would be sorry to see you go.”

Again..I think that’s true up to a point. A lot of Scots would probably feel the same way; however since devolution, things have changed for both nations I think. It is quite striking how many people north of the border now see independence as inevitable, even if not imminent. Even if the SNP fail to secure their goal in the short to medium term, there is overwhelming support for “devolution max”, which would leave the UK in control of only defence, foreign policy and macro-economic issues; again, many people think that would ultimately lead to full independence.

The issue surely for England or “RUK” (Rest of the UK as it’s often referred to in Scottish political blogs) is whether they would tolerate “devo-max” without reducing or eliminating Scottish MP’s at Westminster. I’ve never thought that could work, as the UK political system doesn’t lend itself to a federalist solution; how would we cope with a Tory majority for England, but a coalition or Labour majority for the whole UK?

Your somewhat bleak outlook for an independent Scotland bears little relation to what the reality would be. The Scottish economy is a lot more varied and robust than those of other small European nations… it has much more in the way of industry, technology base, R&D etc, and of course still has significant oil and gas reserves, particularly those unexploited west of Shetland. Non of the others you mention have these advantages. Given recent events, it is by no means certain an independent Scotland would even want to be part of the EU… the Norwegian option might be preferable.

Similarly, your view of where RUK or England might be in 2050 seems somewhat rose-tinted to me; without Scotland, RUK or England slips down a league.. it won’t be playing in the same league as Germany, France and Italy because in population and economic terms it will be smaller, and if the Tories have their way increasingly semi-detached from Europe.

There is no basis to your claim that the SNP doesn’t like immigration that I can find.. sounds like Unionist propaganda to me. I think the latest figures show a net increase in the Scottish population, both natural and now. of immigrants from RUK and abroad covering the last several years.

@43 – Rose-tinted, to put it mildly.

Not only is Wale’s position near-untenable in the UK if Scotland leaves, NI could well see a major escalation in violence again.

Moreover, our economy is downright collapsing. We’ll be lucky to come out as the fifth largest economy by 2050. A Scotland aligned with and using many of the Nordic policies would immediately see the start of a recovery, on the other hand.

@42

As a brand new poster here I hope I don’t go too near the mark with stating a few hard cold facts to yet another ‘victimised’ Scouser.

1. Contrary to the popular belief held within the realms of Merseyland, the rest of the country never mind the rest of the world does not count you as an ethnic minority, so trying to play the ‘scouse card’ comparing your plight to that of the jews or the blacks does not wash with anyone at all.

2. When one of Liverpool’s most famous sons dared to suggest the place is not that much ‘kop’, pardon the pun, those happy chappy joke a minute Scousers were jamming switchboards of newspapers, the local council, radio phone ins and television stations wanting Ringo Starr flogged in public. You don’t seem to get that sort of mass reaction from us horrible Cockneys when one of our own points out that London is actually a bit of a hole do you? And do you know why that is……because he or she is actually stating the blatantly obvious and we’re not so far up ourselves to pretend any different!

3. And finally the ‘Does the comments policy at LC give commenters a free run at anyone with roots in the North West, or what?’ question had me almost reduced to tears of laughter because the last time I looked at a map Manchester is the north west too and having lived there for 18 months a few years ago I can 100% confirm that nobody on the entire planet has more derogatory things to say about Liverpool and its inhabitants than the burgers of Greater Mancunia.

I can now go to bed and sleep easy knowing I have cleared this up a wee bit for those unfamiliar with Merseyland who may have been slightly swayed in to thinking a terrible campaign of ethnic cleansing was about to befall anyone living in a L postcode district.

[47] “I can now go to bed and sleep easy knowing I have cleared this up”, hardly.

Nobody is saying scousers deserve special consideration merely that lazy and stupid stereotyping applied to other groups has raised it’s unwanted head here (see the stupendously fatuous comment at 36).

If you don’t think communities in places like the’ Nam or Peckham complain bitterly about the way they are portrayed in the media after the latest bit of gang-banging, or burning down half of London then you really do see the world through cockney blinkers.

Lets hope Bo-Jo doesn’t see this – it might just trigger the next bout of managed decline?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aBuuafKy9cE&feature=related

@48

Oh the heart bleeds, I am awfully sorry to live in the real world, you know that place that includes people from opposite poles ranging from the far left to the extreme right and absolutely everything in between that has folks who do partake in all sorts of ‘lazy and stupid stereotyping’ as you put it. Rather than just seeing positives which is the realms of politicians fantasies, plenty of people out there notice all the negatives too!

Just look at some of the opinions that the supposed open minded liberal ‘hug everyone apart from those we don’t like’ brigade gob off in here. Seems fine to bad mouth everyone from Maggie Thatcher to bankers in the city of London but dare to say anything even slightly disrespectful about you types consider the ‘salt of the earth’ and it’s lets shoot the bigot down in flames.

Well hello I have many friends in Peckham(being a Millwall fan I would do) and you know what? They are actually quite proud of the negative bordering notorious reputation their manor has, maybe I just associate with REAL people rather than those who live in a utopia believing everything on their manor is hunky dory and how dare anybody say anything negative about the gaff be it warranted(which it usually is I hasten to add) or not.

Absolutely nobody is denying there are good people in every single corner of this country and indeed the whole world in general but hey there are plenty of wrongens out there too and specific areas have specific stereotypes for good reason. As someone who is lucky enough to have seen a lot of the world because of my love for seeing new places and as I have already let on I’m a football fan who has travelled up, down n across our entire United Kingdom and all over Europe since the late 1970′s I believe I am in a position to be judgemental to a certain degree and believe me those gift of the gab natural born comedian Scousers(both Liverpool and Everton) were slicing opposition fans to ribbons with razors/stanleys and robbing anything n everything they possibly could long before the rest of the country caught on. I myself was stabbed outside Lime Street station in the autumn of 1988 so if anyone has a right to hate them it is me yet I don’t, of course I am more than happy to give it plenty of banter and yes even derogatory verbal to a degree but that is because I like hundreds of thousands and maybe even millions of other people throughout this country get sick to the pit of their stomachs with the ‘good people of Liverpool’ forever bleating on about being victims and butter wouldn’t melt in their mouths bla bla bla sorry but it’s utter tripe and perhaps they more than most should heed the saying ‘you reap what you sow’

[50] ‘I like hundreds of thousands and maybe even millions of other people throughout this country get sick to the pit of their stomachs with the ‘good people of Liverpool’ forever bleating on about being victims and butter wouldn’t melt in their mouths bla bla bla sorry but it’s utter tripe and perhaps they more than most should heed the saying ‘you reap what you sow’ – are Geoffrey Howe in disguise?

Here are a few ‘real’ people trying to adapt to conditions outside of SE16 – I couldn’t possibly comment on how the rest of the country might view them.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LKBPeLfnCSQ&feature=related

No point even putting @51 is there, nobody else apart from you seems to be rushing to the defence of Joey Boswell’s brethren but I shall give you that courtesy at least, although in here showing basic manners to a lady is probably considered sexist.

Not really sure why I should be courteous to you though because all you seem able to do is copy and paste half of what others say like a deranged humanoid parrot and then sign off with a link to youtube as if you’re some sort of latter day Christopher Columbus on an intrepid journey across the internet discovering things no man(or woman of course) ever has before. And even then you can’t do it factually or efficiently because I assume you were feebly attempting to ‘tarnish’ Millwall with the ‘real people trying to adapt to conditions outside of Bermondsey’ dig when in fact all that boring sensationalist news clip shows is the vermin from north of the river playing up, not us you doughnut but it’s ok if you want to turn this in to a mud slinging match about football fan culture so be it.

At least do us the service of finding something on there that shows our more confrontational element at work rather than the opposition, they’ve been at it for 4 decades now so I have full faith in even you getting it right the second time round and then why not post a youtube link about the Heysel tragedy underneath it……you know the one, where those wonderful innocent life loving Scousers murdered 39 Italians and got English clubs kicked out of Europe for 5 years? It shouldn’t be that difficult, not even for a deluded easily offended over defensive self denying lickspittle like your good self.

And finally, nice to see you totally ignored all the facts observations and true tales i came out with in my response. In fact you had to resort to what no doubt you consider was a witty one liner about a has been wet politician who had even less backbone than your average invertebrate, maybe here in liberal utopia central those supposed uber intellectual juvenile quips raise a chuckle but lets be honest it was a rather feeble effort really, though that said I’ve already come to the conclusion not to expect any more than that from you Florence.

No point even putting @51 is there, nobody else seems to be rushing to the defence of Joey Boswell’s brethren but I shall give you that courtesy at least but I do wonder if showing good manners to a lady may be considered sexist in here

Not really sure why I should be courteous to you though because all you seem able to do is copy and paste half of what others say like a deranged humanoid parrot and then sign off with a link to youtube as if you’re some sort of latter day Christopher Columbus on an intrepid journey across the internet discovering things no man(or woman of course) ever has before. And even then you can’t do it factually or efficiently because I assume you were feebly attempting to ‘tarnish’ Millwall with the ‘real people trying to adapt to conditions outside of Bermondsey’ dig when in fact all that boring sensationalist news clip shows is the vermin from north of the river playing up, not us you doughnut but if you want to turn this in to a mud slinging match about football fan culture so be it.

At least do us the service of finding something that shows our more confrontational element at work rather than the opposition, they’ve been at it for 4 decades now so I have full faith in even you to get it right the second time round and then why not post a youtube link about the Heysel tragedy underneath it……you know the one, where those wonderful innocent life loving Scousers murdered 39 Italians and got English clubs kicked out of Europe for 5 years? It shouldn’t be that difficult, not even for a deluded easily offended over defensive self denying lickspittle like your good self.

And finally, nice to see you totally ignored all the facts observations and true tales i came out in my response. In fact you had to resort to what no doubt you consider was a witty one liner about a has been wet politician who had even less backbone than your average invertebrate, maybe here in liberal utopia central those supposed uber intellectual juvenile quips raise a chuckle but lets be honest it was a rather feeble effort really, though that said I’ve already come to the conclusion not to expect any more than that from you Florence.

[52] I could try educate you about Heysel, Sir Geoffrey, but life is simply too short to be arguing with those who take a Kelvin MaKenzie type attitude to sporting disasters.

[47-54] i can not believ what im readin. 2 very sad people have turned a debate about unfair stereotypes in to a soccer punch up, well let me give you both a yellow card so you can carry on scrappin in the kindergarten playground where you belong! i was born and have always lived in the north west of england so have many friends and comrades in liverpool but that also goes for asociates in london. let me tell you nobody cares about a bunch of overpaid badly behaved young millionaires chasing a bit of leather about apart from a few chav yobs dotted about here or there, not in london not in liverpool not here in carlisle not anywhere!
when i was at college i worked at our local boots in town and yes we did have a problem with gangs of shoplifters from merseyside coming up to target our store but that does not mean every liverpudlian is a thief and we all know liverpool fans killed those poor innocent people and ritely do have a terible reputation but once again most people in liverpool hate football just like me! yes even here in tranquil carlisle we had local soccer yobs who regularly had pitched battles with rival fans but they were and still are a miniscule minority. the only problem we ever had in the store with football fans if you can call them that was when 1000′s of them from scotland invaded the town 1 day and caused carnage. i do not know much about sport in general least of all football but i think they were rangers fans bedecked from head to toe in green and white. even our manager who was a wonderful middle aged woman was headbutted by 1 of these scum when she tried to stop him stealing a few bottles of perfume and had her nose broken. that is what football means to me and 99.9% of people everywhere so the 2 of you get a life and take your pathetic squabbles that none of us care about to somewhere where you can mingle with your fellow braindead chav thugs. your bile filled comments have not enriched this debate 1 bit!

Well of course Florence, I’m sure you would like to educate me about Heysel with your Liver Bird spectacles on but let me ‘educate’ any others who may be following our debate in here, obviously I don’t include union activists that reside in the vicinity of Gretna Green in that but I can move on her/him later.

Here now follow two very different accounts of what happened on that fateful night of the 29th May 1985.

Firstly, the Liverpool FC supporters version with the complete backing of the global pro LFC Stasi including ‘stereotypical Scouse hating Tory peer’ and lifelong LFC fan Michael Howard……….

Liverpool’s wonderful loyal fans were just finding their chosen vantage points on the terraces of the Heysel Stadium when 100′s of Italian nazi ultras began attacking a couple of 10 year olds and their dad from Bootle. Liverpool fans being the epitome of peace, good nature and fair play bravely ignored the Belgian Police holding guns to their heads in an attempt encourage them to retaliate and tried to ‘calm down’ the Italian hordes by offering them tea and biscuits. Confronted by this generous gesture of a River Mersey full of PG Tips and a European butter mountain sized structure of custard creams Il Duce’s regiment of Turin Stormtroopers piped down and everyone started having a jolly old time. Then from nowhere mobs of Chelsea Headhunters, Millwall Bushwackers and Charlton Athletic’s B Mob charged at the Italians, all hooligan groupings from ‘down that London’ with perceived strong links to the National Front and British Movement don’t you know conveniently enough hmmmmm perhaps they were airlifted in by the RAF on the direct orders of ‘Scouse hater in chief’ Maggie Thatcher eh, who knows? Without their 4th Armoured Division in sight the Turin terror corps were forced to retreat but that said retreat was blocked by a wall that had specifically been tampered with the night before by Tory agents in Brussels knowing all about the grand plan to tarnish the good name of Liverpool FC and its fantastic fans. Under the strain of 1000′s of Italians escaping the waves of far right London hooligans, all of them on the Tory Party payroll one hastens to add, it gave way killing 39 of them and of course had nothing to do whatsoever with followers of the ‘mighty reds’.

And secondly, what the Belgian police and independent witnesses including a world wide TV audience saw and reported. May I just point this is all the people who are not members of the global pro LFC Stasi and therefore bigots with an axe to grind on anything Liverpool…….

In the run up to the game Liverpool and Juventus fans started taunting each other including some flares being thrown from the Italian section in to the Liverpool ranks. Liverpool’s fans then chose to tear down the fences separating them from their Italian counterparts and, excuse the terrace terminology here, kicked right off swarming in to Juventus end through the no man’s land separating both sections. The Brussels police already under immense pressure with running battles between Juventus Ultras and Liverpool Casuals outside the ground and hundreds of other Liverpool fans without tickets smashing their way in to the stadium did not have the man power to deal with yet more chaos inside the arena and as the Italian fans ran from the Liverpool fans onslaught there was a tragedy of immense proportions as a wall collapsed and 39 people died. Of course in true Liverpool tradition, the club and its wonderful fans sought scapegoats rather than accept any blame themselves and accused everyone from Maggie Thatcher to the Belgian Police and the poor state the Heysel Stadium was in but the truth is their fans attacked the Juventus fans and consequently everything that happened after that was a result of that initial incursion in to the Italian fans section. They will forever bleat ‘look at the trouble the Juventus Ultras caused at the other end of the stadium’ after the tragedy itself and this is true including one Juve lad firing live rounds from a revolver at the Belgian police but all the deaths happened because they reacted to provocation and charged what on the whole was a section with mainly ‘family and regular’ Juventus fans in it. In the months after, scores of fans were extradited to Belgium to face charges after close inspection of televised evidence and all barring two came from the north west of England, so much for trying to blame Millwall Chelsea and Charlton then! English clubs were banned from Europe for 5 longs years and Liverpool were given another 2 year ban on top of that so it’s quite clear who UEFA thought were responsible but Florence here in true victimised innocent Scouse tradition would tell you different.

Bizarrely enough talking of UEFA leads me on nicely to what unison or whatever he/she calls himself was saying. Rangers are not green and white, that is the other mob from Glasgow as in Celtic and another group of fans who always claim they are the best in the world and victims of everything when in fact that is far far far removed from the truth. A group of fans who have indulged in sectarian hatred for over a century, a group of fans who sing songs glorifying terrorists and held up a banner at a game in Italy barely a month ago stating ‘Fxxx UEFA’ because the governing body of European Football had the ‘audacity’ to fine their beloved club because of them, it’s wonderful fans, singing pro IRA songs and holding up banners demanding ‘no blood stained poppy on our hoops’ in reference to their players wearing the club strip with a poppy embroidered in to it for a fixture around Remembrance Day time. Head butting old ladies just about sums them up but no doubt Florence will claim we at Millwall cut old ladies heads off and whack them on stakes.

Hohum, keep it coming girl

Hmmm, I thought I would check back to see what ‘witty’ name calling and which living in self denial comments you had come out with this time but sadly nothing.

I’m rather disappointed I have to say but then again perhaps I’m not that surprised seeing one of your own types has labelled you a ‘chav’ for trading blows on truth and facts with an illiterate non leftist South London football fan like little old me. Of course you being a NHS employee and no doubt a trade union member who also happens to be the official LC spokesperson for the global pro LFC Stasi puts you miles above me on the social ladder but unfortunately for you according to your rhetoric we are all equal so alas you could never air such intolerant right wing views in a public forum could you? Goodness me, your smug sense of superiority and thus your comical futile hypocrisy would be exposed in black n white for all to see and we couldn’t have that, oh no no no, course not!
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I have to admit I am still smarting a wee bit about you comparing my views to those of Judas sorry Kelvin MacKenzie, you as in Liverpool folk hate him for publishing ‘revelations’ about the manoeuvres your football supporters had got up to for years so it was hardly news to anyone from anywhere that regularly attended football matches during the 1980′s. Just obviously he foolishly chose to reveal them at an insensitive time and as ever the Mersey Mafia threw their arms in the air screamed outrage cried innocence and blamed everyone else rather than man up and take even the slightest bit of responsibility for their serial actions, the same old scenario as trying to accuse us and anyone else other than yourselves for Heysel. You know a few months before that tragic day Millwall fans with the attendance of casuals from other London teams tore Luton to bits and it saw Maggie Thatcher droning on about football hooligans on the news the very next day, I believe one of her quotes was something along the lines of that clubs needed to sort the problem out because they knew who their fans were and they knew who wasn’t, well ironically enough Police spotters from Arsenal Tottenham Charlton and even QPR I believe identified members of their respective hooligan gangs from the television footage of ‘rioting Millwall fans’ invading the pitch and attacking the Bedfordshire Police that night yet not once did any representative from Millwall FC or any of our fans blurt out ‘not us guv’ and try to shift the blame on to someone else……..therein lies the fundamental difference in psyche, we in London especially South London are willing to take it on the chin when some of us do wrong whilst you in Liverpool are forever ducking out of it, refusing to stand up n be counted and seek to blame everyone and everything else rather than accept one iota of blame for your own unsavoury actions.

You as in an entire city are quite clearly nowhere near as thick skinned as you like to portray yourselves to be because if even one person seems not to like you(no names mentioned Kelvin MacKenzie who stopped being a Millwall fan years ago because he objected to the ‘atmosphere of menace in the air’ at The Den) you moan, groan, lob your Harry Enfield wigs n moustaches out the pram and wallow in self pity bleating injustice for decades whilst for us it’s just water off a duck’s back. As our club motto truthfully and accurately says……

NO ONE LIKES US, WE DON’T CARE