POLITICS has changed a great deal since Peter Kilfoyle first made his mark in the Labour Party, as the scourge of Liverpool’s Militant extremists, back in the 1980s.

He entered Parliament as MP for Walton in a 1991 by-election, taking over from another idiosyncratic Liverpool political figure, the late Eric Heffer.

Somehow, both Mr Kilfoyle and Mr Heffer, together with West Derby MP Bob Wareing, who will also be almost certainly leaving the Commons later this year, represent a different kind of Labour Party, one more dedicated to tub-thumping and visceral campaigning, rather than the Blairite way of focus groups and spin doctoring.

Mr Kilfoyle and his like are not afraid to speak their mind. Many other MPs today sadly feel compelled to ask permission from the Whips before daring to open their mouths.

Parliament will be the poorer for his departure, along with several others who have been familiar faces on the Merseyside political landscape for many years – Jane Kennedy, Eddie O’Hara, Claire Curtis-Thomas, Ben Chapman, and Stephen Hesford.

No-one has said so, but it is not hard to imagine that disillusion with the changing timbre of politics might figure somewhere in everyone’s decision to step down. As politics drifts relentlessly towards a centrist perspective, where is the cut and thrust of polarised debate that was once the hallmark of Commons sessions?

We lament the dilution of politics and the stifling of radical thought. We can only hope the post-general election scene in Merseyside later this year may yet have some surprise elements.

But many of Merseyside’s 2010 intake will be new to the game. It will be some time before any of them can aspire to the same kind of reputation as Mr Kilfoyle. Many will miss him – though there are some less contentious politicians who might not. And who, we might ask, would miss them?