In a city so notoriously anti-Tory as Liverpool, Michael Heseltine is one of the few Conservative politicians to be guaranteed a warm welcome.
He owes his popularity to his status as the unofficial "Minister for Merseyside" following the 1981 Toxteth riots, which led directly to the International Garden Festival in 1984 and the first glimmerings of the city's regeneration after its disastrous period of economic slump.
But despite this, there was one occasion 40 years ago when Mr Heseltine was greeted with rotten eggs and abuse while on a visit to one of the city's toughest estates in Croxteth. The then Environment Secretary, his smart suit splattered with eggs, looked bemused as his police escort ushered him away and bundled him into a waiting car, which children had also scrambled over to break eggs on the windows and roof.
