It was such a political lightning rod because of the endemic, deliberately misplaced blame.

South Yorkshire Police gave the media false reports, fuelling the widespread belief that it was Liverpool fans who were drunken hooligans. When the sheer ferocity of the criticisms of the SYP were made clear, and it became apparent her Home Secretary would find his position untenable, The Prime Minister refused to give her full backing to the criticisms of the Police made by Lord Justice Taylor in his report, stating in a memo:

What do we mean by ‘welcoming the broad thrust of the report’? The broad thrust is devastating criticism of the police. Is that for us to welcome? Surely we welcome the thoroughness of the report and its recommendations.

And also the fact it took so long for justice to be served is another charge for people who sought to politicise the disaster. The CPS ruled there was insufficient evidence to justify prosecutions in August 1990. The first inquest in Sheffield took place in November 1990 where South Yorkshire Police maintained that Liverpool fans were to blame, and the inquest later returned a verdict of accidental death. This inquest was later found to be improperly conducted. When the Labour Party entered government in 1997, bearing in mind that Liverpool was a predominantly Labour-voting city, the Home Secretary spent some time trying to find a trustworthy independent source to ascertain that evidence was insufficient in order to lay the issue to rest.

When the Hillsbrough Independent Panel finally published its 2012 report, it reached a conclusion which could've been clearly made years before: that the police had failed to control the situation and so placed the blame on Liverpool fans. A second inquest finally found that the 96 fans who passed were unlawfully killed.

It was a 'political lightning rod' because the easiest conclusion to draw from the aftermath was one of a political establishment attempting to look after their own. These kinds of situations where people are denied justice in what can only be described as some sinister pantomime will always lead to politicisation and mistrust.