Simon Heffer 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.
24 Facts About Simon Heffer
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Simon Heffer was appointed professorial research fellow at the University of Buckingham in 2017.
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Simon Heffer worked as a columnist for the Daily Mail and since 2015 has had a weekly column in The Sunday Telegraph.
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Simon 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 ; 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.
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Simon Heffer worked as a columnist for the Daily Mail from 1995 to 2005.
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Simon Heffer rejoined the Telegraph in October 2005 as a columnist and associate editor.
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Simon Heffer left the Telegraph in May 2011 to "pursue a role in journalism and broadcasting" and "complete a major literary project".
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Simon Heffer later rejoined the Daily Mail to edit a new online comment section, called RightMinds, of the paper's online edition.
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Simon Heffer returned to the Daily Telegraph in June 2015 and has a weekly column in the Sunday Telegraph.
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Simon Heffer has written biographies of the historian and essayist Thomas Carlyle, the composer Ralph Vaughan Williams and of the British politician Enoch Powell, which was described by the New Statesman as "a lucid and majestic tribute" to the politician.
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Simon Heffer received his PhD in modern history from Cambridge University for the 1998 Powell biography.
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In September 2010, Simon Heffer published Strictly English: the Correct Way to Write.
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Simon Heffer became a professorial research fellow at the University of Buckingham in 2017.
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Simon 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:.
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Simon 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.
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Simon Heffer is a social conservative, though in a recent interview he described himself as a Gladstonian Liberal.
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Simon Heffer supported the retention of Section 28, opposed the equalisation of the age of consent and the liberalisation of laws on abortion and divorce.
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Simon Heffer opposed the removal of hereditary peers from the House of Lords in 1999.
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Simon 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.
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In 2010, Simon Heffer criticised the then Prime Minister, David Cameron, and modernising elements within the Conservative Party.
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Simon Heffer has written sympathetically about and backed the United Kingdom Independence Party and Nigel Farage.
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Simon Heffer supported the UK's withdrawal from the EU in the Brexit referendum.
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Simon Heffer has two children and lives in Great Leighs, near Chelmsford.
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Simon Heffer is a director of the London Chorus and was previously director of the Elgar Foundation.