HESELTINE: Three days in Liverpool changed me forever

FORMER 'MINISTER FOR MERSEYSIDE' ON REBUILDING CITY IN 1980S... AND TACKLING FAR-RIGHT SCOURGE TODAY

- By LIAM THORP ECHO Political Editor

MICHAEL Heseltine is a rare thing - a prominent figure in the Conservative Party who is generally welcomed in the city of Liverpool.

The party hasn't held a council seat in Liverpool since 1998 and the last Tory MPs to represent the city lost their seats in 1983.

In many households, the mere mention of the name Margaret Thatcher will be met with a torrent of expletives.

But one of her most prominent ministers, the man whose efforts and vision for this part of the country led to him being called the 'Minister for Merseyside,' is viewed more fondly.

"This is a bit embarrassing," says Lord Heseltine now. "but it is amazing the number of people who stop me, all over the world, and say 'I come from Liverpool and I just want to thank you."

So how did a key member of Margaret Thatcher's government, a government that would effectively go to war with the city of Liverpool in the 1980s, become revered enough to be given the freedom of the city?

He says he believes it is because he was willing to listen.

In the aftermath of the Toxteth riots in the summer of 1981, the then Environment Secretary told Prime Minister Thatcher that he wanted to go to Liverpool to walk the streets and find out exactly what was behind the scenes in Liverpool 8.

"The first day I got a terrific welcome," he recalls. "People were saying 'well done Secretary of State, at last you have come, we appreciate what you are doing."

He says the three days he spent in the city changed him forever, as he witnessed first hand the social impact of the decline of the city's docks and manufacturing industries, which would contribute to unemployment figures rising to 27% in the city by 1985-double the national average.

He added: "I had not seen the stress and strain and the utter deprivation that Liverpool contained at that time.