Boris Johnson has been slammed by Labour MP for dodging Liverpool on while on Merseyside for Brexit talks.
The PM, who authorised a infamous rant about the city while editor of the Spectator in 2004 - was in the area for talks with Irish PM Leo Varadkar.
And despite being invited by our sister paper the Liverpool Echo to visit the city, Mr Johnson fled rather than visit the city after talks at nearby Thornton Manor on the Wirral.
Maria Eagle tweeted "Not coming to Liverpool then?" after footage of the PM arriving in the North West was posted online.
An infamous piece - written by Simon Heffer - but edited and approved by Mr Johnson, smeared Liverpool and its people following the brutal beheading of Scouse engineer Ken Bigley in Iraq and lied about the Hillsborough victims.
Yesterday Liverpool's Metro Mayor Steve Rotheram said Mr Johnson should "put time aside to, at long last, acknowledge the pain he caused as Editor of the Spectator, in publishing an article that smeared our city and the lives of 96 football fans who lost their lives at Hillsborough."
Talking about the attitudes of Liverpudlians, the 2004 article said: “The extreme reaction to Mr Bigley's murder is fed by the fact that he was a Liverpudlian.
"Liverpool is a handsome city with a tribal sense of community.
"A combination of economic misfortune — its docks were, fundamentally, on the wrong side of England when Britain entered what is now the European Union — and an excessive predilection for welfarism have created a peculiar, and deeply unattractive, psyche among many Liverpudlians.
"They see themselves whenever possible as victims, and resent their victim status; yet at the same time they wallow in it.”
On the Hillsborough tragedy it added there was “no excuse for Liverpool’s failure to acknowledge, even to this day, the part played in the disaster by drunken fans at the back of the crowd who mindlessly tried to fight their way into the ground that Saturday afternoon.”
The piece claimed that just 50 people died, when the final total was 96 - and repeated the lies that fans fought their way into the ground.
An independent report and the 2016 inquests ruled there was nothing to suggest fans’ behaviour contributed to the disaster.
After the article was published the Liverpool MP Peter Kilfoyle demanded an immediate apology for the article.
Mr Kilfoyle attacked the piece in the Liverpool Echo.
He said: "It is outrageous and bigoted and it is the responsibility of the man who presumes to be shadow minister for Culture, Media and Sport.
"To single out Liverpool as somehow being psychologically flawed is absolutely outrageous. He should immediately apologise for this disgraceful comment about Liverpool, and the tragedy at Hillsborough and the implied insult to the Bigley family."
Following the publication of the piece, then Tory leader Michael Howard ordered Mr Johnson to visit the city and apologise.
He then said: I think the article was too trenchantly expressed but we were trying to make a point about sentimentality. It's a kick in the pants for me."
The day after he became PM, Mr Johnson failed to apologise for the comments when confronted by Liverpool MP Maria Eagle.
She said: "He said he wants to govern for the whole of the country, but in a previous role the Rt Hon Gentleman has accused my constituents of wallowing in their victim status, repeated offensive and proven untruths about the cause of the Hillsborough disaster and called Liverpool self-pity city.
"So will he now apologise from the dispatch box to the people of Liverpool for the offence that he has caused?"
But Mr Johnson's answer failed to address the issue.
He said: "I ask the Honorable lady to look at my political record and look at what we've achieved and look at what I've done as a one-nation Conservative, helping with policies that are uniformly delivering better outcomes for the poorest and neediest in society - and that is what I stand for and that is what I believe in and that is what this whole government is going to deliver."
