The lost art of a sensible debate eh?
Liverpool as a community has an understandable reason to be suspicious of the national government and cynical of everything that embodies the south east, as the part of the country that took control of the Hillsborough narrative and as the part of the country that prospered through Thatcherism at the cost of the North, Midlands and South Wales. In the minds of many from these deprived areas the country was split during the 1980s into competing geographic factions: the old working class communities that enabled the Industrial Revolution against the new service industry based middle classes of the Home Counties. So anyone with an ounce of emotional intelligence can understand how the royal family can be wrapped up in Liverpool’s world view as being on the other side, geographical, economically, politically and culturally. And the connections to the Irish community clearly play a part too.
What’s to say about the other side of the argument? First of all, none of us really know what the royal family really think of Liverpool, there is no evidence of positive or negative attitudes from them towards Liverpool. Second, many deeply working class communities rely on the royal family, and more broadly, national pride, as a social tool to build their communities around. You can argue this is perverse (it is) but it is irrefutably evident not just in the council estates of the South but the North too. People who haven’t got enough money to fill the car can still find a way of taking positives from their lives by following the progress of William, Kate, Harry, George etc. To some, prayers help, for others, it’s the footage of Louise waving badly from the balcony. I’m not justifying it, it’s batshit crazy, but it is true. Third, we who use the argument of economic disparity ought to take a second look at our line of argument. 2023/24 home kits going for £125, kids equivalents at £60. The club needlessly changing kits once a year. We covet sightings of players who earn more in a month than all of us lot will earn in a lifetime. We sing and we chant eagerly about people who hold more wealth than even some of the extended members Royal family will ever dream of. We help to create economic inequality in hundreds of inadvertent ways each time we interact with this club.
I’m not here to say what’s right or wrong. I’m here to say let’s hold our views a little more loosely.
