Burnham: New law strikes at 'cover-up culture' over soccer disaster

LONDON — A police cover-up after a 1989 football stadium tragedy was seminal in shaping soon-to-be new British Prime Minister Andy Burnham’s political outlook.

Upon returning to the House of Commons this evening for the first time as a member of parliament, Burnham used his maiden speech to hail a proposed new Hillsborough law — named after the Sheffield football stadium where 97 Liverpool fans lost their lives in a crush — which imposes a duty of candor on public officials.

Burnham faced raw anger and heckles of “justice” and “truth” in 2009, when he was culture secretary, at a memorial service at Liverpool’s Anfield stadium to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the disaster.

Days before he moves into No. 10 Downing Street, Burnham pledged to end the U.K.’s “cover-up culture” and put “decency back at the heart of the British state.”

Burnham said the law will “change the way this country thinks and works about justice,” as it “truly is a rewiring of the state and a passing of power from the authorities to the hands of ordinary people.” MPs approved the legislation Tuesday evening, and it will now go to the House of Lords for further scrutiny.

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