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The Times The row over the Liverpool takeover took a new twist last night when a former Prime Minister of Canada leapt to the defence of Tom Hicks Jr and accused the British media and business world of “character assassination” in “an environment akin to a witch-hunt” during the club’s sale last month. In a remarkable article published in today’s Times, Brian Mulroney says that Martin Broughton, the former Liverpool chairman, and the board “took [Hicks’s] asset against his will and devalued the club in a fire sale”. Hicks and George Gillett, his coowner, left Anfield when Broughton completed the sale of the club to New England Sports Ventures for about £300 million. Hicks had quoted an asking price of £600-800 million. The former owners’ fury at the sale was in stark contrast to the joy of fans, who had fought to oust the American pair after they took control at Anfield in February 2007, loading the club with £285 million in debt. Mulroney, who was Prime Minister from 1984-93 and admits a friendship with Hicks, says that the way the Texan was treated is “truly disturbing”. The former owners, he says, “dramatically increased the value of the club through considerable investment”, escalated transfer spending and had record expenditure on wages and personnel, “including hiring a new world-class manager” in Roy Hodgson. Hicks will contest the sale in court and Mulroney asks “how such a travesty could have occurred in England, the birthplace of fundamental justice”. The sentiment will find no support on the Kop, where the legacy of Hicks and Gillett continues to leave a bad taste.

One of my best friends is now strongly using cocaine. He has enough money so he can afford it, but he is doing automatically every friday and saturday. He works and lives a normal life, is a manager in an international company, spends his evenings during working days with his girlfriend at home watching TV etc, but comes weekend and he puts 3-4 grams of that stuff combined with 7-8 bottles of wine. Is it just a part-time junkie? You think he can stop it? I think not. Have my own experiences with drugs and I think he is completely in it now.