Hillsborough

The only good thing about the terrible story of the Hillsborough cover-up is that the truth did eventually come out in the end.

I would like to live in a country where we could take for granted that public servants can be trusted to tell them the truth. A great many public servants - including a much higher proportion of politicians of all parties than is often given credit - are honest and would never dream of countenancing the sort of black propaganda which we now know happened after Hillsborough.

But unfortunately not all. And when ordinary citizens find that the allegations of a cover-up against the South Yorkshire Police and ambulance services, which sounded at the time like partisan conspiracy theories, turn out to be no more than the truth, there is likely to be a loss of confidence which will take a long time to put right.

Ironically, this will therefore make it harder for more honest publis servants to be believed when they are telling the truth - which is a further tragedy.

It is right that there have been a large number of apologies from the Prime Minister down for what happened at Hillsborough and subsequently. It is also right that there should have been calls for justice. But we need to make sure that it is justice and not revenge.

A large number of people stand today with a great deal of egg on their faces for the way they responded to the Hillsborough disaster at the time or subsequently. Some of those people should be held to account, through due process, for their actions.

But there must be a distinction made, between on the one hand those who knowingly sought to create a picture of events which was at best misleading and at worst a dreadful libel against the victims, and on the other hand those who made the mistake of believing people whose word they should have been able to trust.

From the latter group an apology should be sufficient. But for the former group there needs to be an investigation whether criminal or disciplinary charges should be brought.

And football, the police, and the emergency services need to have another look at how we make sure that no repetition of the Hillsborough Tragedy or the Hillborough cover-up can happen again.