Simon Heffer, Baron Blackwater

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Simon James Heffer, Baron Blackwater, is an English historian, journalist, author and political commentator who sits in the House of Lords. He was born on 18 July 1960 in Chelmsford, Essex.

Education and early life
Heffer attended King Edward VI Grammar School in Chelmsford and studied English at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, where he earned an MA. He later completed a PhD in Modern History at Cambridge for his 1998 biography of Enoch Powell.

Career in journalism and writing
Heffer has had a long career in newspapers. He worked for The Daily Telegraph until 1995, then wrote for the Daily Mail from 1995 to 2005. He returned to The Telegraph in 2005 as a columnist and associate editor, left in 2011, and after a stint editing an online section for the Daily Mail, he rejoined The Telegraph in 2015 and began a weekly column in The Sunday Telegraph.

As an author, Heffer has written biographies of Thomas Carlyle, Ralph Vaughan Williams, and Enoch Powell (the Powell biography, Like the Roman, published in 1998, was well received). He published Strictly English in 2010, a guide to grammar and usage. He also authored High Minds: The Victorians and the Birth of Modern Britain (2013) and a trilogy on Britain from the mid-19th century to the end of World War I: The Age of Decadence: Britain 1880–1914 and Staring at God: Britain 1914–1919 (2019). In 2017 he became a professorial research fellow at the University of Buckingham.

Personal life and beliefs
Heffer is married to Diana Caroline Clee since 1987, and they have two children. They live in Great Leighs, near Chelmsford. Politically, Heffer is a conservative commentator who has supported UKIP and Brexit and is known for his socially conservative views. He has also called for strengthening the United Nations and has spoken about the role of Christianity in public life, despite his atheism.

Peerage
In December 2025, Heffer was announced as one of three Conservative nominees to the House of Lords as life peers. He was created Baron Blackwater, of Great and Little Leighs in the County of Essex on 27 January 2026.