Letters | 4 May 2017

Liverpudlian censorship

Sir: I enjoyed Kelvin MacKenzie’s Diary (29 April). The obloquy thrown at him after his criticism of Everton footballer Ross Barkley would be laughable if it were not for the unpleasant undercurrent on Merseyside now. His remark was football banter, not a racist slur as the mayor of Liverpool, Joe Anderson, has alleged.

What the mayor (or ‘Fat Joe’, as he is known) has failed to do is speak up for free speech. It is — and I deeply regret to say this about my home town — a scandal that newsagents in Liverpool are threatened by violent thugs if they stock the Sun.

There was a ‘Ban the Sun’ campaign in Liverpool before Hillsborough, run by trade unions which opposed Wapping. For a long time the campaign was in decline. But the fact that the Liverpool Echo is owned by the Mirror Group gives it endless fresh legs. It seems to me that for a lot of agitators, the fact that the Sun legitimised working-class people voting Tory was its biggest crime. This is not what freedom is about.
Stewart Finn
London SW17

Unionism must be fostered

Sir: Since, as your excellent leading article (29 April) recounts, the Tory party is once again ‘speaking to the whole of the UK’, it must rediscover its authentic unionist voice in Northern Ireland. Nowhere is the need for Mrs May’s much vaunted strong leadership more obvious than in this part of the Union which she has said is ‘precious’ to her. Despite interminable hours of talking, there is no possibility of resurrecting a devolved executive. The Assembly, elected in March, should be given the task of scrutinising public services and the large Northern Ireland civil service which delivers them. More responsibility for legislation will inevitably pass to Westminster, a prospect which British politicians have customarily viewed with dread.