Hello, I’m Steve Tombs and I’m Professor of Criminology at The Open University.
The two banners I focus on today relate to one aspect of the struggle for justice for
the victims of the 1989 Hillsborough disaster
- both banners were made as part of the campaign
against the lies printed by The Sun newspaper about this tragedy.
This newspaper was
very closely associated with the Conservative Government of the time
and in particular its prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher.
Four days after the disaster, on 19 April, 1989,
underneath a banner headline ‘The Truth’,
half of the The Sun’s front page
was given over to 3 bullet pointed claims:
Some fans picked pockets of victims,
Some fans urinated on the brave cops,
Some fans beat up PC giving kiss of life.
'Don’t Buy The Sun' reads the first banner.
Perhaps there’s a question as to whether
we can call these mass-produced, easily transportable and disposable sheets of red and white A3
paper banners at all.
But they were definitely a significant part of a popular protest movement.
Like other banners in history, they were made cheaply so that they could be numerous and widely used
– fitting competition perhaps for a newspaper with mass circulation
And clearly a great deal of thought has gone into them.
At the top of the first is a reproduction
of The Sun’s own masthead –this version dripping in blood.
Below that we are reminded
of The Truth we do know as opposed to that claimed by The Sun
– that 96 people died at Hillsborough on 15 April 1989.
This is stark, clear, no room for misunderstanding.
What then follows is a call to action – political action,
a boycott of a company’s product.
Don’t Buy the Sun is the demand.
Below that demand are three symbols of the
Hillsborough Justice campaign,
each basedupon a flame indicating that the fight for justice burns strongly
– the words ‘Justice for All’ feature, below which the banner
reveals its source:
The Hillsborough Justice Campaign, with a website address,
urging people to find out more and get involved.
Notice, too, the simple, stark colouring
– red and white were not only the colours of The Sun but also of Liverpool Football Club.
It’s also worth noting that when this banner was seen at derby games - when Liverpool played
the other team in the city, Everton
- there were occasionally versions of this banner in blue and white,
Everton’s colours.
The city united.
This simple banner is a powerful piece of visual political communication,
often carried by a large number of people at once
– as the image indicates – and seen for many years during the campaign for Justice for the 96.
The second banner was paraded outside the Coroners court in Warrington on the day that
new inquest verdicts of unlawful killing of the Hillsborough victims were announced in April 2016.
It was since seen at and around Liverpool football matches.
This is a banner of vindication if not victory
– while the message was still, across the middle, Don’t
Buy the Sun (although The Sun has become The Scum),
at the top of the banner the campaigners own truth is revealed
- We Told You They Lied screams the main lettering.
That ‘they’ had indeed lied now seemed a matter of law. A matter of fact.
Alongside the exhortation Don’t Buy The
Scum is the badge of the South Yorkshire Police
– the police force charged with safety and
control at Hillsborough stadium on the day of the disaster
but which has since been implicated in negligence on the day
and attempts to systematically cover up The Truth of its actions as a force.
And underneath ‘Don’t Buy the Scum’ you can see, again,
red lettering spelling
out Justice for the 96
– bookended by the Hillsborough Justice Campaign’s burning
flame symbolism.
In quality – material, time taken to produce, durabilty - this is clearly a very different
kind of banner to the A3 poster style banner I discussed earlier.
But both types of banners share similarities.
Both rely on a stark, uncluttered format
– not dissimilar to a newspaper front page or news-stand,
both use masthead style lettering which mimics
that of The Sun newspaper itself,
both adopt the newspaper’s colors – red on white
– also those of Liverpool Football Club.
These features make both of these excellent
forms of visual political communication –
they are clear and simple in their meanings,
content virtually unmissable and which resonates to anyone likely to be looking on at them–
whether from inside the ground itself,
in a city, town, train or motorway as they pass
to and from the match,
or indeed as part of TV audiences of tens if not hundreds of millions
across the world who would see games involving Liverpool Football Club.
They were both part of a long-running campaign which saw ordinary men and women take on the
powerful
– the police, the government,
and what was at the time a mass circulation newspaper, The Sun.
It was a campaign that was ultimately successful.
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