It is a pity because Lord Heseltine could have offered uniquely useful advice to the re-branded One Nation Conservative Prime Minister as he seeks to embrace his new MPs from constituencies, many in northern England, that traditionally voted Labour.

Dispatched to Liverpool after the 1981 Toxteth riots in his role as Environment Secretary, Heseltine became at his own insistence minister for Merseyside. As such, he persuaded Margaret Thatcher not to give up on the city — as some, including the then Chancellor, Geoffrey Howe, were advocating — and became its champion.

He helped to drum up investment not just for a selection of high-profile projects, including an international garden festival, Tate Liverpool and the regeneration of the Albert Docks, but for jobs and decent housing. He persuaded business from inside and outside the region that Liverpool had a future, while in London, he was grudgingly praised for managing to cut through Whitehall bureaucracy and get departments to work together on his Liverpool projects.

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Since then, Heseltine’s Liverpool phase has received only intermittent attention, not least perhaps because it does not sit well with the prevailing image of heartless Thatcherism. Yet Liverpool did not entirely forget and he received the freedom of the city in 2012 — regarded as a quite remarkable gesture from a staunchly Labour council to a Tory peer. But there was criticism at the time and since, in particular that after the initial 12 months London’s interest started to wane, that more junior ministers and civil servants were sent to meetings, and that the initiative lost steam.

The ups and downs are well charted in Batting for the Poor, the just-published biography of the then Anglican Bishop of Liverpool, David Sheppard. And there were plenty of misgivings and disputes along the way.

Without Heseltine, though, it is more than likely that the city would have been left to its decline and that any regeneration would have been much longer in coming, if it ever did. The point is that Margaret Thatcher was open to persuasion; the Government’s purse-strings were partially untied, and having a convinced, articulate and well-connected champion in central government made a difference. This is a precedent that Boris Johnson should heed, with or without direct counsel from Lord Heseltine.

If something similar is attempted with the “new blue” constituencies, it will be crucial to avoid any impression of neo-colonialism; any envoy has to be careful not to behave as any sort of viceroy. But the benefit of having named and recognisable champions taking responsibility for long-term regeneration, people with a sense of mission who can serve as champions of their designated town or area, identify the opportunities and unlock the funds, cannot be contested.

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As Lord Heseltine looks at it now — and said at a conference in London earlier this year — he sees his work in Liverpool as some of the most important of his career, not only in its own right, but in the example it set for renaissances elsewhere.

Nonetheless, that initial intervention was crucial in making Liverpool what it is today. Its city centre and the regenerated docks area are flourishing. The waterfront is as sparkling and distinctive as that of any erstwhile port city in the world. If you fly in to Liverpool, you arrive at John Lennon airport; it has capitalised with huge success — though some might feel ad nauseam — on the Beatles and their global fame, adding £82m a year to the local economy.

When I visited Liverpool at the very end of November, the central streets thronged with shoppers (the proof of their seriousness in their bulging bags); there were tourists; hotels were full. The blight described by so many reporters on pre-election profiles of the places where they grew up — John Lichfield’s report on Stoke-on-Trent being a classic of its kind — and reinforced for me by a visit I paid last year to Nottingham, where I spent the first 12 years of my life, does not apply to the main areas of Liverpool.

Where so many cities have approved insensitive redevelopment that seems only to have made incipient decline worse, Liverpool managed a massive, largely low-rise and outdoor redevelopment of its central commercial area that has brought the downtown back to life.

Politically, Liverpool has also held somewhat aloof from the regional pack. Along with Manchester, it was one of few northern cities to vote Remain (58 to 42 per cent) in the 2016 EU referendum. And in last week’s general election there were no defections to the Conservatives; none at all. All of its 14 constituencies remained faithful to Labour. Greater Manchester, in contrast, saw five seats change hands from Labour to Tory.

A recent study, one that made a bit of a stir in journalistic circles at least (UnHerd critique here ), suggested that Liverpool’s political exceptionalism, and specifically its vote for Remain in 2016, might be explained in part by the city’s 30-year long boycott of The Sun newspaper that followed its coverage of the 1989 Hillsborough disaster. The academics’ thesis was that the absence of the eurosceptic Sun, and the shift of many of its readers to the pro-EU Mirror, might have helped to convert what had been a euro-sceptic city.

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Among the flaws in their argument would be that Manchester voted even more strongly for Remain (60-40), that as a strong Labour-supporting city, Liverpool may have followed the party in its shift from being eurosceptic at the first, 1975 EU referendum to becoming pro-EU from the Kinnock and Blair years.

More to the point it’s possible that as a major port city, which has now graduated from cargo to cruises, Liverpool looks outward in a way that many cities elsewhere in the country might not. At least as significant may be the Irish dimension, which not only gives the city some of its distinctive character, but also a special relationship with the island of Ireland, both through direct ferry connectiions and continuing family links.

What is more, its successful regeneration, along with Liverpudlians’ fierce sense of their own identity, may have encouraged its voters to take a more positive view of the present than their fellow-countrymen in the Brexit-voting towns left behind.

This is another reason why Liverpool should perhaps be recognised as the current exception that could prove a future rule. If Boris Johnson is serious about his One Nation ambitions, and if he wants all those new votes he won last week to be more than just “lent” for the short-term purpose of “getting Brexit done”, then he could do worse than mobilise a team of special envoys to fan out across the country with the task of adapting the Liverpool model for elsewhere.

Of course, that could present something of a personal challenge for Johnson, whose history of relations with Liverpool has not been plain sailing. Most famously, when editor of The Spectator, he was dispatched there on the orders of Tory leader Michael Howard to apologise for an article in the magazine that said Liverpudlians liked to wallow in self-pity.

Then again, how better to start mending fences not just with Liverpool — presenting it as a template for successful regeneration — but with the erstwhile minister, now Tory grandee, who staked his personal and political reputation on the possibility that it could be done.

The famous steelworks closed almost four decades ago and saw my hometown become one of the first to be given the unwanted label of “post-industrial”. A town that gained much of its meaning from the industry lost it all and with it 4,500 jobs. For a time it suffered the highest rate of unemployment in western Europe and it still has a justified feeling of righteous anger about the way it was treated. Big promises of re-training and re-investment didn’t amount to nearly as much as promised, and the town took several years to get back on its feet.

Consett isn’t some kind of post-industrial dystopia today – much good regeneration work has been done by the local council and others. It is surrounded by some of the most beautiful countryside in England and, after a substantial dip in population, has now attracted many new residents who commute to work in Newcastle and Durham. But many of the new positions created in the town itself aren’t exactly like-for-like replacements for the high-skilled jobs that gave workers pride and dignity in their labour.

My hometown is one of many scattered around the country that has come to be labelled “left-behind”. All too often, these towns suffer from appalling transport links, decaying town centres and community spaces, ageing populations and a lack of skilled work. Old industries, often with well-paid work that instilled pride and dignity, have often been replaced with employment that is insecure, low-paid and low-skilled. Meanwhile successive governments have further hollowed out these towns by actively encouraging talented young people to leave for university.

It was the revolt of long-forgotten towns like Consett that drove the referendum result – a rebellion by voters who politicians had long stopped listening to and caring about. Little wonder that a message as compelling as “Take Back Control” reached receptive ears. Communities felt that things were done to them, and that any economic miracle the country experienced was something that only impacted other people and other communities.

Following the referendum, the political class started talking about places like Consett again and the media began visiting. But the interest soon waned and people became obsessed with the horse trading of the Brexit negotiations, forgetting about the factors that resulted, in places like Consett, in a decisive vote to Leave. This vote wasn’t just about genuine discontent with the way that the EU worked, but also a desire for a new economic settlement. Now is the time to deliver on that decisive message that came from places like Consett.

Laissez-faire liberalism has little to add to the structural issues that so many towns suffer and a state simply “stepping aside” would run the real risk of making divisions worse. A failed top-down socialism, which through its obsession with nationalisation and centralisation contributed to Consett’s decline, simply cannot provide the prosperity and dynamic private sector that these towns need. Between them laissez-faire liberalism and old-style socialism have contributed to high levels of estrangement and alienation.

Our country today is perilously at risk of becoming the “two nations” that Disraeli warned about and a new, genuinely One Nation approach is need to tackle the issue. In my new book, Little Platoons, I set out what such a new settlement should look like.

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A new One Nation settlement

One Nation is used as a buzzword by everyone from Labour leaders to hardcore Thatcherites, to such an extent that its true meaning is at risk of being lost. To many in the media, it is now synonymous with being pro-European, while others portray it as neo-liberal economics with some social liberalism attached. Both of these definitions are preposterous, given that the whole point of One Nation Conservatism is a domestic agenda of social reform.

“One Nation” means strongly believing in the market mechanism as by far the best way of creating wealth, while rejecting the more utopian elements of capitalism. It is based on the concept that prosperity should reach all parts of society, and for this reason Disraeli deplored the early excesses of laissez-faire and the fact that while “immense fortunes were accumulating… the working classes, the creators of wealth, were steeped in the most abject poverty”.

Iain Macleod also eloquently warned that “you cannot ask men and women to stand on their own two feet if you give them no ground to stand on”. One Nation Conservatives understand that the state can be used intelligently to help create the basis for economic revival in communities that have long known only hopelessness and economic decline.

Two nation economic divisions are all too evident in today’s Britain. The City of London has a gross added value per head of over £300,000 while County Durham has one of £16,000. Since the banking crash, the FTSE 100 has risen by around 60 per cent, CEO salaries have soared and workers’ salaries have barely risen at all.

An equally stark divergence has occurred between the diminishing ranks of property owners, the number of which has fallen by 14 per cent in the past 19 years, and the rising number of people stuck paying expensive private rent (up 17 per cent in the same period) and unable to get on the housing ladder. If a One Nation approach isn’t found to these issues, then a more divisive one will surely fill the void.

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Tory objections to laissez-faire economics are also centred around the impact of an unfettered market on those institutions that conservatives care the most about. In itself the market has little respect for tradition, family, community or nation – it is a dynamic and often atomising force. Too many social divisions can be seen in a country where some communities have become fractured, important institutions that brought people together have been in decline and issues such as alienation and loneliness have become more profound and worrying.

The un-conservative impact of unbridled economic liberalism was understood by Hayek, when he explained “Why I Am Not A Conservative” – arguing that “the liberal position is based on… a preparedness to let change run its course even if we cannot predict where it will lead”. It was that “preparedness to let change run its course” that resulted in so many towns like Consett feeling left behind.

Whereas One Nation conservatives believe in the importance of place, continuity and the familiar, in contrast a free market that isn’t moored by social norms can emphasise the new and the faddish. One Nation Tories understand that, in the words of Sam Rayburn, “any jackass can kick a barn down, but it takes a good carpenter to build one”.  Communitarian conservatism is based around restoring local communities as well as local economies.

A One Nation agenda for a renewed economic settlement should be bold and audacious, with the goal of transforming long declining local economies, empowering communities and bringing prosperity and a sense of control. Young people should be encouraged by the opportunities to stay in their hometown and those who have left should be excited by the opportunities of returning – because social mobility and “opportunity” shouldn’t be the same thing as “escape”.

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A programme of national reconstruction would ensure that towns as well as cities have world class road, rail and digital infrastructure. Devolution should also be accelerated, and the most radical devolution and most substantial investment should be focused on economically stagnating towns.

The industrial heritage and emphasis on skill in many “left behind” towns should also be used as a foundation to build a new settlement. It’s clear that deindustrialisation has gone too far, with Britain doing so more than any other country in the G20. We should look to reindustrialise some forgotten towns with an ambitious industrial strategy that encourages and incentivises industrial investment.

An audacious vocational education revolution should also be developed, with new and ambitious vocational educational institutions established in partnership with the private sector.

Making our country One Nation again means turning around long-forgotten towns, strengthening communities and empowering people who have long felt disempowered. It would mean that towns like Consett were at the centre of political and economic thinking, having spent too long at the periphery. This would build a new One Nation electoral coalition for the Conservatives, transforming society and politics for decades.

Little Platoons: How a Revived One Nation can Empower England’s Forgotten Towns and Redraw the Political Map is published by Biteback