There is no better example of the recovery made by Britain’s great Victorian cities than Liverpool. Twenty-five years ago, the city appeared to be in inexorable decline, paralysed by union and political militancy and racked by the social fissures that led to the 1981 Toxteth riots. Today Liverpool is preparing to be next year’s European Capital of Culture amid an economic and political revival that once seemed inconceivable.

I started visiting the city again in the early 1990s, just over 10 years after Michael Heseltine had begun the regeneration process as Margaret Thatcher’s “Minister for Merseyside”. Some progress had been made, notably the development of the Albert Dock with Tate Liverpool – but the site of the Garden Festival had fallen into disuse and much of the city looked like very early work in progress.