Boris Johnson: "I apologised then and I apologise now"

Boris Johnson arrives in Liverpool to apologise in 2004
Picture courtesy of Skynews

The Mayor of London Boris Johnson has said that he is "very, very sorry" for the editorial published in the Spectator in 2004 when he was editor saying that the drunken fans were partly responsible for the Hillsborough tragedy. Here is the quote from 2004:

"The deaths of more than 50 Liverpool football supporters at Hillsborough in 1989 was undeniably a greater tragedy than the single death, however horrible, of Mr Bigley; but that is no excuse for Liverpool's failure to acknowledge, even to this day, the part played in the disaster by drunken fans at the back of the crowd who mindlessly tried to fight their way into the ground that Saturday afternoon."

As Boris Johnson was on the Opposition front bench at the time, the then Conservative party leader, Michael Howard ordered Mr Johnson to go to Liverpool to apologise for the offensive and inaccurate comments. Today the Mayor of London has once again apologised for the false allegations published by the Spectator. The apology in full: 

"I'm very, very glad that this report does lay to rest the false allegation that was made at the time about the behaviour of those fans. I was very, very sorry in 2004 that the Spectator did carry an editorial that partially repeated those allegations, I apologised then and I apologise now. I do hope the families of the 96 victims will take some comfort from this report and that they can reach some sort of closure."