Simon Heffer

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Simon James Heffer (born July 18, 1960) is an English journalist and writer. He was educated at King Edward VI Grammar School (Chelmsford) and Corpus Christi College, Cambridge. He rejoined The Daily Telegraph in October 2005 as a columnist and associate editor, having served as a columnist for the Daily Mail from 1995. Martin Newland, the Telegraph's editor at the time, described the newspaper as Heffer's "natural journalistic home."^[1]

He has written biographies of the pamphleteer Thomas Carlyle, the composer Ralph Vaughan Williams, and the politician Enoch Powell. Heffer is an admirer of little-known English composer George Lloyd.^[2]

[edit] Politics

Heffer is on the right. He is very critical of the European Union and New Labour, whilst being supportive of the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Culturally, however, he is of the Americosceptic Old Right rather than the pro-American Neoconservative/New Right, as can be seen through his criticism of the "hideous pop music" liked by David Cameron).^[3] Perhaps surprisingly, in the mid-1990s he was generally supportive of New Labour, due to his dissatisfaction with John Major and the Conservative Party at the time. Recently Heffer has written sympathetically of United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP) and Nigel Farage.^[4]

Heffer believes that Christianity should have a strong role in shaping both the moral foundation of society and public policy, although he is himself a self-described atheist.^[5]

When the Home Office put Heffer on its Law and Order Task Force, left-wing politicians were concerned about the direction that criminal law reform might take, with human rights lawyer Baroness Kennedy saying that the government "had not just lost the plot but was handing the plotting over to their most feared critics."^{[citation needed]}

In 2006, Heffer sharply criticised the movie The Wind That Shakes The Barley, a movie by director Ken Loach about the Irish War of Independence. [4]

[edit] Publications

• Heffer, Simon, & Charles Moore (editors), A Tory Seer: The Selected Journalism of T.E. Utley, London, 1989, ISBN 0-241-12728-9

• Heffer, Simon, Moral Desperado: A Life of Thomas Carlyle, London, 1995.

• Heffer, Simon, Power and Place: The Political Consequences of King Edward VII, London, 1998.

• Heffer, Simon, Like The Roman: The Life of Enoch Powell, London, 1998. ISBN 0-297-84286-2

• Heffer, Simon, Vaughan Williams, London, 2000. ISBN 0-297-64398-3

[edit] References

1. ^ Columnist Simon Heffer to join The Daily Telegraph. Daily Telegraph. Retrieved on 5 November, 2006.
2. ^ BBC Radio 3, 'Private Passions', broadcast on the 5th of November 2006.
3. ^ Heffer, Simon (2006), "Simon Heffer on Saturday", The Daily Telegraph, 7 January 2006, London. Available at [1], accessed on 6 January 2007.
4. ^ See, for example, [2] and [3]
5. ^ Stop apologising for being Christian. Daily Telegraph. Retrieved on 21 December, 2005.