Britain could next month become only the second country in the world to have a monument stripped of world heritage status by Unesco. That monument is Liverpool’s magnificent waterfront. And, as if to brush off this shame, Boris Johnson and his government intend to put another site in danger too, at Stonehenge. Does anyone care? Stonehenge is merely the symbol of a minor but total collapse in British government. For some 50 years, local and central authorities have feuded over how to add two lanes to the A303 where it passes within sight of the stones. Hour-long traffic jams along the route are said to build up at weekends. Now the transport secretary, Grant Shapps, clearly drunk on money, wants to blow a staggering £1.7bn on a two-mile tunnel near the site. This would deprive drivers of even a glimpse of the stones as they pass, all to sanitise a particular view from them for some paying visitors. Given the risk of damage to ancient sites and artefacts, I am not sure that would be of great solace to Unesco, and it is insane expenditure. Liverpool is more intractable. It remains one of England’s finest cities, and was delighted to be justly recognised as such by Unesco in 2004. But for half a century its architectural personality had been abused, ever since the communist town planner Graeme Shankland declared it “obsolete” and offered to rebuild it in the 1970s. He was duly commissioned to demolish two-thirds of the city centre for a maze of motorways, towers and slabs. He had barely started when the money ran out and Liverpool went into prolonged decline. Since then, Liverpudlians and their friends have been at war with a demolition-obsessed council. Hundreds of acres of dignified inner suburbs have been flattened and still lie empty and derelict. Whole streets are boarded up. Council towers were erected and then pulled down as uninhabitable. The only booming sector has been student residences. For all this, Liverpool’s capacity to rise from the ashes would always lie in its regeneration of the docks. There lay the ghosts of its greatness, as in the mighty Albert, Stanley and East Waterloo Docks and their quays, warehouses, portals and alleys. The challenge was to see them reborn as a focus of urbanity, creativity and leisure, like Bradford’s Saltaire or the waterfronts at Bristol, Plymouth or Edinburgh’s Leith. After a battle, the splendid Albert Dock was saved and became home to the northern Tate. At the same time, the downtown district of Liverpool 1, saved from Shankland, was restored and has emerged as a bustling network of successful Victorian streets. But to the north of the world monument area, planning inspiration failed. Overpowering the famous Three Graces buildings on the waterfront, are towers and flats of stark banality. Now the prospect of a further 60 hectares of 1990s-style offices and flats – with the added risk of instant obsolescence post pandemic – is what has horrified Unesco. Chief sponsor of this development was Liverpool’s mayor, Joe Anderson. When he came to power in 2012, like many new wave northern city leaders, he was obsessed with luxury towers as symbols of civic virility. As they sprouted on the outskirts of the monument area, Unesco warned that if they went ahead Liverpool risked losing its heritage designation. Anderson retorted that such buildings were “more important to secure the future” of jobs in Liverpool than protecting “a derelict site”. He was also desperate to back a £500m football stadium for Everton on the waterfront, despite these stadiums being known to blight any hope of urban community. London’s Olympic stadium in Stratford, now home to West Ham, is a black hole sucking life out of the entire site. Liverpool has long had troubled government. Anderson was arrested last December over claims of bribery and witness intimidation linked to building deals in the city. He denies any wrongdoing and remains under investigation. (Joanne Anderson – no relation – was elected to replace him in March). The city had already been put under Whitehall commissioners, with much talk of “turning over a new leaf”. Despite this, the local government minister, Robert Jenrick, refused to intervene to undo Anderson’s damage to Liverpool’s reputation. In such disputes between Unesco and local authorities, governments customarily step in to negotiate a deal. Jenrick is in effect supporting the potential loss of Liverpool’s status. Who should be responsible for protecting national – or international – monuments may be moot. But if national governments will not do so, international ones are entitled to a view. Britain often lectures Middle Eastern countries on protecting their monuments. These great cities are for a future world to enjoy. Where local pressure to demolish or despoil a monument is intense, it is customary for national guardianship to operate. In Italy, France and Germany, this guardianship is strong. In Britain it is weak, largely through the political influence of the developer lobby. This is not a matter simply of aesthetics. Respecting history is now recognised as holding the key to long-term urban renewal. Go to any battered British city centre – in Birmingham, Leeds, Manchester, Liverpool – and the areas most buzzing with life are the few surviving historic neighbourhoods. They have a chemistry modern architecture seems unable to replicate. The model for Shankland’s Liverpool was London’s Barbican, its acres often silent as the grave. Jenrick last year humiliated Liverpool by declaring it unfit to govern itself. The least he can now do is rescue it from that humiliation, intervene and negotiate a compromise over its at-risk heritage status. Otherwise, Unesco should declare him as unfit as he did the city council. Simon Jenkins is a Guardian columnist