Got this off Wikipedia

Anyone remember Boris Johnson's comments a few years ago?

On 16 October 2004, The Spectator carried an unsigned editorial comment criticising a perceived trend to mawkish sentimentality by the public. Using British hostage Kenneth Bigley as an example, the editorial claimed the inhabitants of Bigley's home city of Liverpool were wallowing in a "vicarious victimhood"; that many Liverpudlians had a "deeply unattractive psyche"; and that they refused to accept responsibility for "drunken fans at the back of the crowd who mindlessly tried to fight their way into the ground" during the Hillsborough disaster, a contention at odds with the findings of the Taylor Report. The actual reaction in Liverpool to Bigley's murder by his Islamic captors consisted of no more than two minutes' silence organised by the city council (one of several held around the country) and a sparsely attended service at Liverpool Metropolitan Cathedral, although overblown coverage and hyperbole was indeed rampant in the media. The editorial closed with: "In our maturity as a civilisation, we should accept that we can cut out the cancer of ignorant sentimentality without diminishing, as in this case, our utter disgust at a foul and barbaric act of murder."

Posted By: iwans_ex_dentist on April 3rd 2007 at 12:22:40

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