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Simon Heffer

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Simon Heffer
Born
Simon James Heffer

(1960-07-18) 18 July 1960 (age 64)
Chelmsford, Essex, England
EducationKing Edward VI Grammar School, Chelmsford
Alma materCorpus Christi College, Cambridge
Occupations
  • Historian
  • journalist
  • author
  • political commentator
Spouse
Diana Caroline Heffer
​
​
(m. 1987)​
Children2

Simon James Heffer (born 18 July 1960) is an English historian, journalist, author and political commentator. He has published several biographies and a series of books on the social history of Great Britain from the mid-nineteenth century until the end of the First World War. He was appointed professorial research fellow at the University of Buckingham in 2017.

He worked as a columnist for the Daily Mail and since 2015 has had a weekly column in The Sunday Telegraph. As a political commentator, Heffer takes a socially conservative position.

Early life and education

Heffer was born in Chelmsford, Essex, and was educated there at King Edward VI Grammar School before going to read English at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge (MA); after he had become a successful journalist and author, his old university awarded him a PhD in History for his 1998 biography of Enoch Powell.[1]

Career

Journalism

Heffer worked for The Daily Telegraph until 1995. He worked as a columnist for the Daily Mail from 1995 to 2005. He rejoined the Telegraph in October 2005 as a columnist and associate editor. Martin Newland, the Daily Telegraph's editor at the time, described the newspaper as Heffer's "natural journalistic home".[2] He left the Telegraph in May 2011 to "pursue a role in journalism and broadcasting" and "complete a major literary project".[3] It had been speculated that his departure had been prompted by his constant attacks on David Cameron's government, of which the Telegraph had been generally supportive.[4] Heffer later rejoined the Daily Mail to edit a new online comment section, called RightMinds, of the paper's online edition.[5][6] He returned to the Daily Telegraph in June 2015 and has a weekly column in the Sunday Telegraph.[7]

Historian and author

Heffer has written biographies of the historian and essayist Thomas Carlyle, the composer Ralph Vaughan Williams and of the British politician Enoch Powell (Like the Roman), which was described by the New Statesman as "a lucid and majestic tribute" to the politician.[8][9] He received his PhD in modern history from Cambridge University for the 1998 Powell biography.[10]

In September 2010, Heffer published Strictly English: the Correct Way to Write... and Why it Matters, a guide to English grammar and usage. The book met with some negative reception.[11] Since 2010 he has published several historical works such as A Short History of Power (2010) and a series of three books on the social history of Great Britain from the mid nineteenth century until the end of the First World War: High Minds: the Victorians and the Birth of Modern Britain (2013), The Age of Decadence: Britain 1880 to 1914 and Staring at God: Britain 1914 to 1919 (2019).

Heffer became a professorial research fellow at the University of Buckingham in 2017.[10]

Hillsborough comments

Heffer said in 2012 that he wrote the first draft of a Spectator editorial in 2004 regarding the death of Kenneth Bigley, which said in part:

The extreme reaction to Mr Bigley's murder is fed by the fact that he was a Liverpudlian. Liverpool is a handsome city with a tribal sense of community. 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. They see themselves whenever possible as victims, and resent their victim status; yet at the same time they wallow in it. ... They cannot accept that they might have made any contribution to their misfortunes, but seek rather to blame someone else for it, thereby deepening their sense of shared tribal grievance against the rest of society. 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. The police became a convenient scapegoat, and The Sun newspaper a whipping-boy for daring, albeit in a tasteless fashion, to hint at the wider causes of the incident.[12]

These comments (sometimes incorrectly attributed to the then-editor of the Spectator, Boris Johnson) were widely circulated following the April 2016 verdict by the Hillsborough inquest's second hearing proving unlawful killing of the 96 dead at Hillsborough.[13] Johnson apologised at the time of the publication, saying: "That was a lie that unfortunately and very, very regrettably got picked up in a leader in the Spectator in 2004, which I was then editing."[14]

Politics

Heffer was politically left-wing in his teenage years, but had abandoned his views by the time he went to university, although he states he still has a lingering respect and affection for several past figures of the left, such as Michael Foot and Tony Benn.[15]

Heffer is a social conservative, though in a recent interview he described himself as a Gladstonian Liberal. He supported the retention of Section 28, opposed the equalisation of the age of consent and the liberalisation of laws on abortion and divorce.[16] He opposed the removal of hereditary peers from the House of Lords in 1999.[17]

Heffer believes that Christianity should have a strong role in shaping both the moral foundation of society and public policy, but he is personally an atheist.[18]

In 2008, Heffer called for the United Nations to be strengthened: "If the UN ceases to be regarded by the larger powers as an institution to secure the peace of the world and justice therein, then that holds out all sorts of potential dangers."[19] On 27 May 2009, Heffer threatened to stand as an independent against Sir Alan Haselhurst,[20] his local Conservative MP and a deputy speaker, unless Haselhurst paid back the £12,000 he claimed for work on his garden, as revealed in the Parliamentary expenses scandal.[21] A month later, Haselhurst announced that he would pay the £12,000 back, while insisting it had been claimed within the rules.[22]

In 2010, Heffer criticised the then Prime Minister, David Cameron, and modernising elements within the Conservative Party.[23][24]

Heffer has written sympathetically about and backed the United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP) and Nigel Farage.[25] He supported the UK's withdrawal from the EU in the Brexit referendum. In an article in the Daily Telegraph, Heffer suggested that some of those who supported Britain remaining in the European Union were members of the Bilderberg Group and attendees of the World Economic Forum at Davos.[26] From 2016 to 2019, he was part of the political advisory board of Leave Means Leave.[27]

Personal life

Heffer married his wife Diana in 1987.[28] He has two children and lives in Great Leighs, near Chelmsford.[29][obsolete source] He is a director of the London Chorus (London Choral Society) and was previously director of the Elgar Foundation.[30]

Bibliography

Books

Author

  • The Daily Telegraph Century of County Cricket: The 100 Best Matches (Sidgwick & Jackson, London, 1990) ISBN 0283060484
  • Moral Desperado: A Life of Thomas Carlyle (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1995) ISBN 978-0297815648
  • Power and Place: The Political Consequences of King Edward VII (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1998) ISBN 978-0297842200
  • Like the Roman: The Life of Enoch Powell (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1998) ISBN 0-297-84286-2
  • Nor Shall My Sword: The Reinvention of England (London: Orion, 1999) ISBN 978-0297643326
  • Vaughan Williams, (London, 2000) ISBN 0-297-64398-3
  • Great British speeches (London: Quercus, 2007) ISBN 0857383272
  • The Daily Telegraph Style Guide (London: Aurum, 2010) ISBN 1845135717
  • Strictly English: The Correct Way to Write... and Why it Matters (London: RH Books, 2010) ISBN 978-1-84794-630-0
  • A Short History of Power (London: Notting Hill Editions, 2011) ISBN 1907903208
  • Heffer, Simon (2013). High minds: the Victorians and the birth of modern Britain. London: RH Books. ISBN 9780099558477
  • Simply English (London:RH Books, 2014) ISBN 0099558467
  • The Age of Decadence: Britain 1880 to 1914 (London: Random House, 2017) ISBN 978-1-84794-742-0
  • Staring at God: Britain in the Great War (London: Random House, 2019) ISBN 978-184794-831-1
  • Sing As We Go : Britain Between the Wars (London: Hutchinson Heinemann, 2023) ISBN 152915264X
  • Scarcely English: An A to Z of Assaults on Our Language (London: Hutchinson Heinemann, 2024) ISBN 978-1529152791

Editor

Book reviews

Year Review article Work(s) reviewed
2014 Heffer, Simon (21 November 2014). "The unfinished battles of Waterloo". New Statesman. 143 (5237): 44–45.
  • Cornwell, Bernard (2014). Waterloo : the history of four days, three armies and three battles. London: William Collins.
  • Kershaw, Robert. 24 hours at Waterloo : 18 June 1815. W. H. Allen.
  • O'Keeffe, Paul. Waterloo : the aftermath. Bodley Head.
  • Clayton, Tim. Waterloo : four days that changed Europe's destiny. Little, Brown.
  • Simms, Brendan (2014). The longest afternoon : the four hundred men who decided the Battle of Waterloo. Allen Lane.

Critical studies and reviews of Heffer's work

High minds

See also

References

  1. ^ Brook, Stephen (1 December 2009). "Simon Heffer to take sabbatical from Daily Telegraph". The Guardian. Retrieved 14 March 2016.
  2. ^ "Columnist Simon Heffer to join the Daily Telegraph". The Daily Telegraph. London. Archived from the original on 11 March 2007. Retrieved 5 November 2006.
  3. ^ Robinson, James (11 May 2011). "Simon Heffer to leave Daily Telegraph". The Guardian. London. Retrieved 12 May 2001.
  4. ^ Simon Heffer to leave Daily Telegraph, The Guardian, 11 May 2011
  5. ^ Halliday, Josh (13 September 2011). "Simon Heffer launches MailOnline comment website RightMinds". The Guardian. London.
  6. ^ Simon Heffer and media ownership, BBC Radio 4, 14 September 2011
  7. ^ 'Culture isn't just nice – it's necessary', Daily Telegraph, 6 June 2015
  8. ^ Ian Aitken (11 December 1998). "The long road to oblivion. Ian Aitken on Simon Heffer's lucid and majestic tribute to the controversial genius of Enoch Powell". New Statesman. Retrieved 15 March 2011.
  9. ^ www.faber.co.uk Archived 11 May 2013 at the Wayback Machine
  10. ^ a b "Professor Simon Heffer". University of Buckingham. Retrieved 15 November 2019.
  11. ^ David Crystal (14 October 2010). "Strictly English: The Correct Way to Write...and Why it Matters By Simon Heffer". New Statesman. Archived from the original on 17 October 2010. Retrieved 15 March 2011.
  12. ^ "Bigley's fate". The Spectator. London: Press Holdings. 16 October 2004. Retrieved 27 April 2016.
  13. ^ Doré, Louis (26 April 2016). "The truth about that awful Boris Johnson 'quote' on Hillsborough". indy100. Archived from the original on 29 April 2016. Retrieved 29 April 2016.
  14. ^ "Hillsborough: Boris Johnson apologises for slurs in 2004 Spectator article". Liverpool Echo. 13 September 2012. Retrieved 27 April 2016.
  15. ^ https://newhumanist.org.uk/articles/2430/calm-down-old-boy-laurie-taylor-interviews-simon-heffer
  16. ^ Heffer, Simon (7 January 2006). "The sooner the 1960s are over, the better". Simon Heffer on Saturday. The Daily Telegraph. London. Archived from the original on 14 May 2008. Retrieved 5 March 2022.
  17. ^ Heffer, Simon (18 January 2011). "The last thing the House of Lords needs is a mass of elected members". The Daily Telegraph. London. Archived from the original on 19 January 2011. Retrieved 5 March 2022.
  18. ^ Heffer, Simon (21 December 2005). "Stop apologising for being Christian". The Daily Telegraph. London. Retrieved 21 December 2005.
  19. ^ Heffer, Simon (12 January 2008). "UK foreign interventions as a middling power". The Daily Telegraph. London. Retrieved 23 May 2010. [dead link‍]
  20. ^ Simon Heffer "MPs' expenses: do the right thing, Sir Alan Haselhurst, or I will stand against you", Daily Telegraph, 27 May 2009.
  21. ^ Stephen Brook "Daily Telegraph writer Simon Heffer threatens to stand against his Tory MP", The Guardian, 27 May 2009.
  22. ^ "MP to pay back Gardening Expenses". Saffron Walden Conservatives. May 2009. Archived from the original on 29 June 2009. The expense claims I made over recent years have been strictly in accordance with Parliamentary rules… However, my claim for gardening help has caused concern. Out of respect to my constituents I am this week repaying the sum of £12,000.
  23. ^ Heffer, Simon (18 May 2010). "Only a Tory without principles would demonise the Right". The Daily Telegraph. London.
  24. ^ Heffer, Simon (21 May 2010). "Dave will rue the day he betrayed the Conservatives". The Daily Telegraph. London.
  25. ^ Heffer, Simon (8 April 2006). "Not all the loonies are in UKIP, Dave". The Daily Telegraph. London. Archived from the original on 7 July 2016. Retrieved 5 March 2022.
  26. ^ The EU Empire is going to fail. On Thursday, we can protect Britain from the chaos of its death throes, by Simon Heffer, in The Daily Telegraph, published 19 June 2016; retrieved 2 April 2017
  27. ^ "Co-Chairmen – Political Advisory Board – Supporters". Leave Means Leave. Archived from the original on 4 February 2019.
  28. ^ "Heffer, Prof. Simon James". Who's Who. A & C Black. 2023. doi:10.1093/ww/9780199540884.013.U41475. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
  29. ^ "Simon Says". Great British Life. 13 October 2008. Retrieved 10 November 2024.
  30. ^ "Simon James HEFFER". company-information.service.gov.uk. Retrieved 12 November 2024.
  31. ^ https://thecritic.co.uk/a-chip-on-his-shoulder/
Media offices
Preceded by Deputy Editor of The Daily Telegraph
1994–1995
With: Veronica Wadley 		Succeeded by
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