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Liverpool MP Andy Burnham has suggested that Tony Blair did not order a full enquiry into the Hillsborough disaster because he did not want to offend Rupert Murdoch.

Mr Burnham, a Labour leader hopeful said he was told not to pursue his demand for an official investigation when serving under Mr Blair.

As a result a “major injustice” was allowed to remain in place for more than a decade, he said.

Mr Burnham was the driving force behind Gordon Brown’s decision to set up the Hillsborough Independent Panel into the deaths of 96 Liverpool fans.

The panel subsequently found that “multiple failures” by the police and other services had contributed to the death toll, prompting David Cameron to make an official apology in 2012.

Mr Burnham told Westminster journalists that an official inquiry could have been set up earlier but the Blair government did not want to offend Murdoch’s News International, the publisher of the Sun newspaper.

The Sun caused lasting outrage after publishing a report following the 1989 tragedy accusing “drunken” Liverpool fans of attacking rescue workers.



Mr Burnham, an Evertonian, has said that if elected leader he would not go on “bended knee” to certain newspapers.

“It got us to the point where a whole city was crying injustice throughout our time in government and we weren’t listening,” he said.

He said there seemed to be a decision by the Blair administration on Hillsborough to “leave it alone”.

“I don’t know all of the background to the decision-making, but in 1998, after the Stuart-Smith inquiry, a decision was taken to draw a line under it and to leave it in that position,” he said.

Mr Burnham said he was told he should not “carry on looking into” what happened at the Sheffield Wednesday stadium.

“That was the wrong decision and allowed a major injustice to remain in place for 11 to 12 years,” he said.

Tony Blair declined the opportunity to comment on Mr Burnham's allegation.

Portraits of the 96 Liverpool fans lost at Hillsborough

Pictures/Video: How the disaster unfolded

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