Why does the Vast Rightwing Conspiracy hate Liverpool?

Let's say it upfront: We told you so. A few days ago, we had a lengthy post discussing how Dubya-loving hack Mark Steyn had a column rejected by the Daily Telegraph. We speculated that what made the Telegraph nervous was not just the impugning of murdered hostage Ken Bigley and his family, but the broader ridicule of the city of Liverpool, where the Bigleys are from. Too many echoes for the Telegraph of the mistake Rupert Murdoch's Sun made in blaming fans of Liverpool FC for the Hillsborough disaster.

But of course what often drives episodes like this is that an objectionable sentence or two reveals what people are really thinking, and it seems that amongst the Airstrip One branch of the VRC, it was those damned Liverpudlians who provided a downer for Dubya's War on Terror, and what else should we expect from the architects of the Hillsborough disaster? So says Telegraph columnist, Tory MP, and archetypal right-wing chum Boris Johnson in a column in the Spectator (which he edits, and was likewise part of the Conrad Black empire):

[BBC] The article, in the issue dated 16 October, says people in Liverpool "cannot accept that they might have made any contribution to their misfortunes, but seek rather to blame someone else for it, thereby deepening their sense of shared tribal grievance about the rest of society".

It says Liverpudlians "wallow" in their "victim status", adding it is part of the "deeply unattractive psyche" of many in the city.

... It adds [Liverpool] fans at the Hillsborough disaster, when 96 people died, were at fault rather than the police

In a seemingly uncoordinated development, today's Wall Street Journal Europe (subs. req'd) devotes an editorial to the miracle of what global capital markets have done for Manchester United:

Capital markets helped make Man U great ... Manchester United -- or the Red Devils as they're nicknamed -- became a more dominant force in the modern game after they became a PLC in 1991. The financing that then became available enabled the club to successfully respond to commercial opportunities and acquire top players. Today's complaints about "exploitation" display a total lack of understanding of what the existing management has been up to these last 13 years.

Is the US side of the VRC now looking to ape the regional prejudices of uninformed English toffs*?

*[UPDATE: Which is to say that, other than having a big money globalised sporting dynasty in Manchester, people in northern England are just a bunch of whiners]

[Further update, Oct 19: Steyn is back in this Tuesday's Telegraph and uses the Boris Johnson imbroglio to work in the essence of his previous column:

By Friday, [the Spectator] editorial had been attacked as being insensitive to the great City of Liverpool, Michael Howard had (naturally) denounced it and, with a Scouse fatwa about to descend, Boris Johnson decided the previous day's robust words were no longer operative.

He goes on to argue, basically, that if there is more Islamist terrorism, it will partly be Liverpool's fault.]