Calls For Tory Sports Minister To Quit After Hillsborough Jibe

Conservative Sports Minister Jeremy Hunt has resisted calls to step down from his post, after a comment he made on the 1989 Hillsborough football stadium disaster, which has angered many relatives of the injured and the dead. 

Appearing on Sky News on Monday afternoon, Mr. Hunt was praising the behaviour of England supporters in South Africa, where despite the team’s embarrassing exit from the World Cup, at the hands of Germany, not a single arrest was made.  He then went on to make this remark:

“I mean, not a single arrest for a football-related offence, and the terrible problems that we had in Heysel and Hillsborough in the 1980’s seem to be behind us.”

To say the least, it wasn’t the best remark to come out with, and has seen the city of Merseyside respond in fury, that he was implying that fans were to blame for Britain’s worst sporting disaster.  On April 15^th 1989, 96 Liverpool supporters were crushed to death on terraces of Sheffield Wednesday’s Hillsborough, whilst attending the team’s FA Cup semi-final with Nottingham Forest.  An enquiry into the events of that fateful day twenty years ago, led by the late Lord Justice Taylor found that police crowd control was the main reason for the horrific crush, not hooliganism. 

After realising his damming comments could have caused offence, Hunt released the following statement hours later:

“I apologise to Liverpool fans and the families of those killed and injured if my comments caused any offence.”

That apology doesn’t wash though with the chairwoman of the Hillsborough Family Support Group.  Margaret Aspinall, who lost her son James at Hillsborough said:

“I am fed up of people saying things like that.  For 21 years, we have been fighting for justice, to get the message out that it was not down to drink or hooliganism.  He is the Culture Secretary.  He should know better.  I want him to understand that he has reopened old wounds which should have been healed many years ago.” 

After apologising, Hunt has received the full backing from the Prime Minister David Cameron.  However, for those who lost people at Hillsborough, the pain will never go away, and they will feel that this piece of incompetence should be heavily punished for more than a simple apology.