the times | Tuesday May 17 2022 17
News
Boris Johnson has criticised Jurgen
Klopp, the Liverpool manager, for de-
fending fans who booed the national
anthem before the FA Cup final.
A number of Liverpool supporters at
Wembley Stadium tried to drown out
God Save the Queen before Saturday’s
game against Chelsea. They also jeered
when the Duke of Cambridge, presi-
dent of the Football Association, met
the teams before kick-off, and booed
the traditional hymn Abide With Me.
Some Liverpool fans have been boo-
ing the national anthem since the 1980s
out of hostility to the establishment.
After the final, which Liverpool won
on penalties, Klopp said most fans were
“wonderful people” and it was impor-
tant to consider why some of them
booed the anthem.
“I know our people well enough that
they would not do it if there was no rea-
son. I am not here long enough to un-
derstand the reason, it’s for sure some-
thing historical, and that’s a question
you can answer better than I ever could.
“Our fans, and I know a few fans from
PM presses Klopp for defending national anthem boos
Fariha Karim other clubs see it slightly differently, the
majority are wonderful people, smart
and go through the lows and highs,
suffer together.
“They wouldn’t do it if there was no
reason. That’s what I know. Maybe we
should ask this question.”
A spokesman for Boris Johnson said
that the prime minister did not agree
with Klopp. “It was a great shame that
as we were marking 150 years of the FA
Cup, an event that brings people to-
gether that a small minority chose to
act in that way,” he said.
Cabinet papers have revealed how
ministers under Margaret Thatcher’s
government had almost written Liver-
pool off after the Toxteth riots in 1981.
The former chancellor Sir Geoffrey
Howe warned Thatcher not to waste
money on the city by trying to “pump
water uphill”, saying that the govern-
ment should pursue a “managed de-
cline” of the city instead.
Thatcher also rejected criticism of
the police force after the Hillsborough
disaster, which killed 97 people and in-
jured 766. South Yorkshire police, who
were perceived to have a friendly rela-
tionship with the prime minister, told
her the day after the 1989 disaster that
“drunken Liverpool fans” outside the
football ground had caused it.
According to government papers
Thatcher was concerned that the in-
terim Taylor report, which was pub-
lished in August 1989, constituted a
“devastating criticism” of the police.
She asked that the official response go
no further than welcome the report’s
thoroughness and recommendations.
An independent report published in
2012 accused the force of deflecting
blame for the disaster on to innocent
fans. In addition to the Hillsborough
cover-up, there remains anger in thecity about the extent of socio-economic
inequality.
Over the weekend Sir Lindsay Hoyle,
the Commons Speaker, led the criti-
cism. He told The Mail on Sunday: “I
utterly condemn any fans who booed
Prince William at Wembley. The FA
Cup final should be an occasion when
we come together as a country. It
should not be ruined by a minority of
fans’ totally shameful behaviour. In this
year of all years — the Queen’s Plati-
num Jubilee — this is dreadful.”
Kensington Palace has not officially
responded to the incident. However,
the Cambridges tweeted their congrat-
ulations to Liverpool after their victory.Jurgen Klopp said people should be
examining why fans boo the anthempatrick kiddTMS
[email protected] | @timesdiaryBomber drops
cookery tips
Arthur “Bomber” Harris is best
known as the RAF commander
who ordered attacks on German
cities during the war. It turns out
he was also an enthusiastic cook,
receiving a Cordon Bleu certificate
in the 1950s after impressing the
famous school with his sausages.
Tom Assheton, his grandson,
writes in The Oldie about finding
Harris’s handwritten cookbook,
which has such flourishes as “add
cognac before serving” under his
French onion soup. Assheton
recalls a “large and entertaining”
figure, who summoned diners not
with a gong but a music box that
played the intermezzo from
Cavalleria Rusticana. The Oldie
reproduces a favourite menu of
his, beginning with Swedish curry
soup, followed by monkfish and
prawns in a red chilli sauce and
veal cutlets “Old Bossy”, named
after his wife. Disappointingly, it
finishes with “a little lemon pot”
rather than bombe surprise.St Joseph’s Abbey in Massachusetts,
which has the only Trappist
brewery outside Europe, is to stop
making beer. The brewery opened
in 2013, in a triumph for hops over
experience, but the near silent order
of monks has found it is no longer
viable. Probably too reliant on
selling by word of mouth.royal gardener
At a party at Claridge’s to mark the
125th anniversary of Country Life,
the editor, Mark Hedges, recalled
taking a guest to a Buckingham
Palace garden party who told him
she didn’t know how to curtsy.
After some coaching, Hedges
told her to do this whenever
she met a royal, no matter
how minor. Sure enough,
when a familiar figure strode
across the lawn towards
them, his friend duly
bobbed in feudalgenuflection. This surprised Alan
Titchmarsh, below, who was
expecting only a handshake.commons knees-up
Thirty years after a former Tiller
Girl became Speaker of the
Commons, Betty Boothroyd’s
successor was shown how to do
the can-can by a 101-year-old
dancer. Dinkie Flowers was invited
to parliament after doing 100
high-kicks for charity and she
showed Sir Lindsay Hoyle her
moves. Flowers later remarked
that Mr Speaker was “very light on
his feet but could benefit from
pointing his toes a little more”.Der Spiegel has given a bayonetting
to Christine Lambrecht, the German
defence minister, criticising her for
not building links with allies. It says
she cancelled calls to Ben Wallace so
often her British opposite number
sent a letter of complaint. One
cancellation was because she had a
hair appointment. Must have
frustrated the follicly challenged
Wallace to be given the brush-off.not her finest hour
Katharine Birbalsingh, dubbed
Britain’s strictest head teacher, has
long been praised by ministers for
restoring rigour to education. Not
all the time, it seems. A new
documentary about her shows
Birbalsingh passing a quotation on
a school corridor wall that was
wrongly attributed to Winston
Churchill. “Success is not final,
failure is not fatal: it’s the courage
that counts,” it said. A noble
sentiment but one coined not by
the former PM but by a 1930s
Budweiser advert. Embarrassing
for someone who gave a speech
saying education standards had
fallen so far many children think
Churchill is the dog who sells
insurance on TV. But let us be
charitable. As Birbalsingh
knows well, it was Einstein
who observed that “27 per cent
of quotations found on the
internet are fake”.