Lewis Hamilton called my hometown a slum, that’s fine, just don’t bother coming back

The BBC's "Sports Personality Of The Year" awards were held on Sunday, with Tour De France champion Geraint Thomas crowned this year's winner.

The last 12 months of British sporting excellence was celebrated, with everyone having a good time, but then Lewis Hamilton was called to the stage and said yet another stupid thing.

There is no question about Hamilton’s sporting ability. He has proved himself to be an ardent and diligent sportsman. Five-time Formula One World Champion, a record-holding racer, and a former recipient of the "Sports Personality Of The Year" award. He is frequently heralded the greatest driver of his generation and as an inspiration to many hopeful sports stars.

Unfortunately, Hamilton seemed to have forgotten his platform on Sunday, when he labelled his hometown, my hometown, the relatively unheard of Stevenage, a commuter town in Hertfordshire just 25 minutes away from London as a "slum", whilst his family were sat in the audience.

Hamilton’s exact words last night were that his family had a dream to "get out of the slums", he then realised his slip up and added, "we would say, it was not the slums, but come out of somewhere and do something". I can gather that Hamilton is speaking of how his family would privately refer to Stevenage, and that live television is always unpredictable, but from someone with this much PR assistance and training, this was totally unacceptable.

His comments are appalling because they are disrespectful and belittling to those who live in Stevenage town, in the surrounding villages, or people like me who are straddled somewhere between the two.

His comments are also grossly out of touch with the current state of world affairs. To equate a relatively sleepy commuter town in the home counties, equipped with a well-managed hospital, a couple of supermarkets, a business park, a GSK laboratory and a shiny new Debenhams, to the war-torn, overly-crowded, poverty and disease stricken favelas that exist elsewhere in the world is absolutely preposterous. Clearly, one of Hamilton’s assistants needs to educate him on what a "slum" actually is, because although it lacks the aesthetic glamour of Beverly Hills or Monte Carlo, shockingly I fail to comprehend how north Hertfordshire is one.

Stevenage is hardly South Kensington. We have our fair share of empty retail units, pot-holes, discount stores and council flats if you rather ignorantly want to hold those things wholly to account for the lack of blossom in this town. Yes crime exists here, and yes much like everywhere else in the world not everyone is not a fantastic human being, but that should not discredit or excuse the fact that Stevenage is many peoples' cherished hometown. It is where they live, where they grew up, and where their friends and family are. Hard-working, decent, professional families live here too and Hamilton, who seems to have let his extraordinary fame and success go to his head, indirectly insulted them.

Hundreds of people work day and night in Lister Hospital, in the many schools, offices, restaurants and industries that make up Stevenage, and instead of chipping in to ensure the prosperity of the town for its thousands of children, Hamilton has criticised their hometown on primetime television. Clearly this was not his intention, but it sure looks bad.

We are bombarded with images of celebrities and public figures returning to their childhood neighbourhoods, assisting their ex-communities, helping the less fortunate, and at least doing something to boost the profile of their town. Perhaps, in private Hamilton has made many visits of pilgrimage back to Stevenage, to donate and promote, but since he shot to fame in the late 2000s, I personally haven't noticed him contribute to his hometown in anyway, he seems to have long neglected Stevenage for the likes of Monaco, and Switzerland.

Of course, Hamilton’s decision to cut ties with us is his personal decision, and of course he wants to better his life now he is an incredibly wealthy man, but that doesn’t warrant his criticism of the town, and the bad image of it that he subsequently projected to thousands of viewers.

Although I cannot speak for Hamilton’s childhood experience, he attended John Henry Newman School, an excellent school, and is undoubtedly one of the highest achieving schools in the area, clearly quite the opposite of the "slum" experience.

Much like everywhere else in the country, Stevenage has a posh bit and a not so posh bit, and Hamilton made the generalisation that all 90,000 inhabitants of this town are living in extremely dire conditions.

His comments follow plans to build a "Lewis Hamilton Hub" in the SG1 town.

I fear that Hamilton has continued alienate his loyal Hertfordshire fan-base, by seeming, and I hate to say it, arrogant and disingenuous. On a final note, let's just all take a moment to praise Hamilton for his unparalleled bravery in escaping the slums of Hertfordshire, England.