This House of Lords appointment is an insult to Liverpool and a sign of a system that's broken

Simon Heffer's appointment will cause outrage in this city and add to calls to abolish the second chamber, writes Liam Thorp

The latest appointments to the House of Lords have been announced(Image: PA)

For many, the repeated image of the friends, allies and favoured former colleagues of the nation's leaders being routinely stuffed into the upper chamber of parliament is an unsavoury one at the best of times.

This undemocratic charade sees political parties trying to outdo each other for supremacy in the House of Lords by handing taxpayer-funded jobs for life and the ability to shape and influence the laws governing our lives to people they just happen to be fond of.

I'm sure there will be many people in this city and this region who have little time for this undemocratic shambles, and they will be as frustrated as I am to hear that Sir Keir Starmer - who previously described the second chamber as 'indefensible' - has just announced the creation of 34 new peerages.

But it is the Conservatives' latest nominations to the Lords that will likely cause most concern for the people of this part of the country.

On the Tory list of new peerages is the journalist and Daily Mail and Sunday Telegraph columnist, Simon Heffer.

If that name rings a bell, it is probably related to one article in particular that Mr Heffer 'had a hand in', which no Scouser who was unfortunate enough to read it will ever forget.

It was 2004 and following the tragic and brutal death of Liverpool-born engineer Ken Bigley, who was kidnapped and beheaded by Islamic State extremists in Iraq, the city, as it always does, had come out to show its support.

This show of simple humanity at a life taken in such traumatic fashion resulted in an appalling attack on the city and its people from the Spectator magazine.

The article, titled 'Bigley's Fate', accused the city of Liverpool of "wallowing in victim status" over both the death of Mr Bigley and the Hillsborough disaster, in which 97 Liverpool fans were unlawfully killed.

The article, of which Mr Heffer later admitted he produced the initial draft, stated: "A combination of economic misfortune ­(its docks were, fundamentally, on the wrong side of England when Britain entered what is now the European Union) ­and an excessive predilection for welfarism have created a peculiar, and deeply unattractive, psyche among many Liverpudlians.

Boris Johnson, then an MP and editor of the Spectator in front of the Liver Building when he visited to apologise to the city for remarks made in his magazine

"They ... see themselves, whenever possible as victims, and resent their victim status, yet at the same time they wallow in it."

On Hillsborough, it shamefully added: "The deaths of more than 50 Liverpool football supporters at Hillsborough in 1989 was undeniably a greater tragedy than the single death, however horrible, of Mr Bigley; but that is no excuse for Liverpool's failure to acknowledge, even to this day, the part played in the disaster by drunken fans at the back of the crowd who mindlessly tried to fight their way into the ground that Saturday afternoon."

Leaving aside the crass understatement of the number of victims of Hillsborough (which was then 96), this latter myth has been consistently and comprehensively proven to be incorrect over the course of 36 years. Nobody repeating it, now or in 2004, should be given any credence whatsoever.

These smears and lies were printed in a magazine edited by Boris Johnson at the time. The future Prime Minister would be told to come and apologise to the city by his then leader Michael Howard.

When pressed by the ECHO at the time of his visit, Mr Johnson said: "When I passed this, I did think the language was strong but I must confess that it was my own error that I did not think it would cause the dismay and hurt it did.

"It was insensitive. It was a complete miscalculation."

However, he went on to add: "I don't feel I should resign. I think that would be a kind of admission that the whole point of the leader was wrong. I would have to kind of perform a full frontal lobotomy on myself. I can't resign over something I don't fundamentally dissent from."

Mr Heffer has been open about his own key role in the incendiary piece.

Writing in the Daily Mail in 2012 he said: "When I heard the piece (which described Liverpool ‘wallowing in victim status’) had created a furore in the city and that Mr Johnson was in trouble with Michael Howard, I offered to ring the then Tory leader and admit responsibility."

So now we have the prospect of a figure so happy to spread malicious lies about the deaths of innocent football fans, while taking revolting pot shots at an entire city, simply for showing heart and humanity for those who have suffered, being granted a lifetime role in the setting of our country's laws - and a role we have to pay for.

I don't know if everyone in Liverpool will share my views on the need to get rid of the House of Lords altogether - but if not, I suspect this latest appointment might bring a few more over to my side.

© Liverpool Echo