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Spectator
09-07-2025
- Politics
- Spectator
Norman Tebbit was the symbol of an age
Norman Tebbit, who died this week aged 94, was a self-made man who shouldered his way to the top of a party of old Etonians. He was, to many, the leather-clad bovver boy of Spitting Image, ordering the unemployed to get 'on yer bike'. He was a devoted husband who stepped back from politics to care for his wife, Margaret, after they were pulled from the wreckage of Brighton's Grand Hotel. And he was an unrepentant right-winger, who was unflinching about where his party had gone wrong, and unforgiving to the monsters who had put his wife in a wheelchair. This Middlesex grammar school boy turned airline pilot, turned cabinet minister, changed the country he loved for the better. As a secretary of state he played a crucial role in curbing the powers of the trade unions; as Conservative party chairman he delivered Margaret Thatcher's third, crushing election victory; as a backbencher and peer, he was a campaigner for Brexit far earlier, and far more enthusiastically, than most. More than anything, Tebbit was the symbol of an age – a man who embodied the turbulent, consensus-busting 1980s, perhaps even better than the Prime Minister whom he assiduously served. There were times when Tebbit seemed to be too blunt for liberal Tory tastes. As Dominic Lawson, our former editor, records in his article, this magazine was critical of Tebbit when he proposed his 'cricket test'. He had suggested that whether people from ethnic minorities supported England or the country of their ancestors was an effective test of integration. We said then that Tebbit, who was on the board of this magazine at the time, was 'in danger of confusing Yobbo chauvinism with citizenship'. It is a measure of Tebbit's own integrity that he applauded Lawson for demonstrating admirable editorial independence. But what has happened since has, if anything, vindicated Tebbit. He was willing to risk criticism in the interests of a more unified country. When the 7/7 bombers struck, 20 years ago this week, he claimed vindication, telling the BBC: 'We have generated home-grown bombers; a combination of the permissive society together with a minority population deeply rooted in its own moral code.' Tebbit felt compelled to talk openly because he knew he spoke for millions who would not otherwise be heard – those ignored or scorned by the Establishment. In the 1980s, he spoke for workers who wanted to be free from trade union intimidation and for voters exasperated that their income was going to a bloated welfare state and unproductive nationalised industries. He was the tribune of the aspirational and patriotic British working and lower-middle class; those who understood that Thatcherism offered them an alternative to managed decline. The labour market reforms that Tebbit introduced transformed the country's economic prospects. Yet this was as much about morals as it was money. He argued convincingly that individuals should take responsibility for their actions. That the state has no cash of its own, only that which it takes from taxpayers. That accumulating wealth is a reward for virtue, not some form of theft. So when progressive voices, including in his own party, claimed that rioting was a natural response to unemployment, he had a reply. Tebbit is perhaps best known for telling the story of his father, who had not resorted to violence when he faced unemployment but had 'got on his bike and looked for work' and 'kept looking till he found it'. It is instructive to note the contrast between the moral clarity of Tebbit's Protestant work ethic and this government's intellectually incoherent and fiscally incontinent plans for welfare reforms. To remember Tebbit only for his combative instincts is to overlook his compassion. His deep hatred of Irish republicanism must be balanced with his dedication to his wife; his unshakeable opposition to Cameroon modernisation with the quiet support he offered to many young politicians; his ferocious arguments with a children's book he wrote about a disabled boy and his dog and his cookbook that proved that the 'Chingford Skinhead' knew game just as well as any grouse moor grandee. Tebbit often joins the likes of Tony Benn, Enoch Powell and Roy Jenkins on the list of great prime ministers that we never had. There is always a romance to these counter-factuals. The idea of Tebbit leading the country was all the more alluring when faced with John Major's premiership: the appeasement of Irish republicanism, the surrender to European integration, the drift away from principle. If there was one politician who most deserved to be Thatcher's successor, it was Tebbit. Yet his fidelity to another Margaret – the wife he adored and whose health he put first – meant a Tebbit ministry was a dream that went unfulfilled. Today's Conservatives should remember his grit, resolve and fidelity to a clear set of beliefs. Not everyone can be a Norman. But we can learn the lesson of his life: that there is a time for gentleness, and a time for pugnacity. Faced with another weak government that is damaging our country, now is the time for the latter.
Yahoo
08-07-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Norman Tebbit: Thatcher's true believer was a bruiser until the very end
Norman Tebbit was one of Margaret Thatcher's true believers and one of her most loyal allies. In a Conservative party full of old Etonians and toffs, he was also one of very few cabinet ministers from a working-class once told me, when he was party chairman in the mid-1980s and I was working for The Sunday Times, about the snobbery in the party. "They think I eat peas off my knife," he said. I think he was joking. He revelled in his reputation as a working-class bruiser. Labour's Michael Foot called him a "semi house-trained pole cat" and he was widely known as "The Chingford Skinhead". During the riots of 1981, he famously spoke of his father being unemployed in the 1930s. "He didn't riot," he said. "He got on his bike and looked for work." I've been reporting at Westminster since 1982 and covered the Thatcher era when Norman Tebbit was a giant on the political stage throughout. When I started as a political journalist he had just been promoted to the cabinet in Mrs Thatcher's momentous reshuffle late in 1981. That was the reshuffle in which Mrs Thatcher purged the so-called "wets" in her cabinet and appointed true believers like Tebbit, Cecil Parkinson and Nigel Lawson. Like many incoming governments, hers had struggled in the early days, though perhaps not as badly as Sir Keir Starmer's is at the moment! In the early '80s, though, inflation and unemployment were both rampant. Even after the 1978-79 "winter of discontent" that brought down James Callaghan's Labour government, strikes were still crippling industry. Mrs Thatcher decided radical action was necessary. So she handed Tebbit the job of employment secretary: his job was to tame the power of the trade unions. He succeeded one of the cabinet "wets", the moderate James Prior, who had been branded "Pussyfoot Prior" by Tory-supporting newspapers over his perceived failure to take on the unions. He was exiled to Northern Ireland in the 1981 reshuffle. Parkinson became a charismatic party chairman and Lawson became energy secretary and later succeeded Sir Geoffrey Howe as chancellor. Tebbit had always been very anti-trade union, going back to his first job in the printing room of the Financial Times, where he had been forced to join a union, and then his days as a British Airways pilot. So as employment secretary, he introduced tough anti-trade union legislation, including outlawing the closed shop and making strike ballots compulsory. And, as Mrs Thatcher turned round the fortunes of her government following the 1982 Falklands War, he became one of the most senior members of the cabinet, and one of her most dependable allies. After the 1983 Tory landslide, she promoted him to trade and industry secretary, after Parkinson quit in a sex scandal after fathering a love child. But just as Tebbit was becoming one of the giants of the Thatcher government and being talked about as a potential successor as PM, his political career was cut short by the 1984 IRA attack on the Grand Hotel in Brighton. It was to be the defining moment of his career. Who can forget the images of him being rescued after he was trapped in the rubble? He was badly injured, spent three months in hospital and his wife Margaret was paralysed and spent the rest of her life in a wheelchair. Read more: Some political observers claimed he was never quite the same after his injuries and the sorrow and anger about his wife's condition. I don't think he lost any of his edge, however. He was still a great political campaigner and a bruiser. During the 1987 election, there was tension between Tebbit and Lord Young, another Thatcher favourite, over election strategy, although despite a "wobbly Thursday" during the campaign the Tories won handsomely again. My other personal memory of Lord Tebbit is breaking the story in the UK about his "cricket test" remarks about Asian supporters, in an interview with the Los Angeles Times in April 1990. He spoke about a test of how English someone from an ethnic minority background was by asking which cricket team they supported. "Which side do they cheer for?" he declared. "It's an interesting question." The headline on my story on the front page of the late - and some would say unlamented - Today newspaper was "Tebbit race bouncer. The ultimate test for being British: Which side do the Asians cheer for at cricket?" He was strongly criticised for his remarks, not just by political opponents, but also by Conservative MPs. But Lord Tebbit was controversial right throughout his career. A divisive figure, he was adored by the Tory Right but loathed by the left and trade unions. But what's not disputed is that he was a massive figure in the Thatcher years.
Yahoo
02-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Princess Diana Insisted That Prince William and Prince Harry Forego This Royal Tradition
A new royal book, Dianaworld, chronicles Princess Diana's insistence that her sons, Prince William and Prince Harry, attend Eton College, as the men in her family had. By sending her sons to Eton, Diana bucked royal tradition of sending the men in the family to Gordonstoun in Scotland, where Prince Charles attended. A similar debate is reportedly occurring about whether to send Prince George to Eton or to Marlborough College (where Kate Middleton attended) when he changes schools in Diana was groundbreaking for the royal family in many ways—for starters, the way she parented and the way she wasn't afraid to show her emotions in public. Perhaps nowhere is her enduring legacy still felt on the royal family more than the way she parented, which—not an overstatement—truly broke the mold for royal parenting. It can be seen in the way that both of her sons, Prince William and Prince Harry, parent their own children up to the present day. As the 'Eton versus Marlborough' debate rages on about where the Prince and Princess of Wales' eldest child, Prince George, will attend school next year, a new book looks back at how Diana bucked royal tradition when it came to where to send William and Harry to school. In Dianaworld: An Obsession (which came out April 29), author Edward White shares that Diana 'insisted' that William and Harry be educated differently than their father Prince Charles and grandfather Prince Philip had been. 'Once her sons were born, she was firmly of the mind that her responsibility was to shape them as new types of Windsors, providing a new style of kingship,' White wrote (via Marie Claire). William and Harry's educational future was 'something that occupied the attentions of rather a lot of people in the late eighties and early nineties,' White continued—not unlike George's future is capturing the royal zeitgeist today. When William and Harry ultimately attended Eton College, it was a tradition-breaking move, as Charles and Philip, as well as Charles' brothers Prince Andrew and Prince Edward, all attended Gordonstoun in Scotland. To put it mildly, Charles had a miserable time at Gordonstoun, but even still wanted his own sons to be educated there. But Diana 'rejected all these suggestions' for her sons 'and insisted the boys be sent to board at Eton College,' White wrote. In the Princess of Wales' mind, 'the Englishness that Diana wanted to install in her children was aristocratic rather than royal.' After all, Eton was where the men of Diana's family, the Spencers, attended—her father and only brother both were Etonians (as were 20 British prime ministers). 'When Diana spoke of raising princes who were in touch with 'the man on the street,' she meant by making them more like the men in her family,' White added. When William and Harry enrolled at Eton—William becoming the first senior royal and future monarch to be educated at the school—White wrote that Diana made 'her sons more typical of the English upper classes than her ex-husband [Charles] has ever been.' Diana's edict won out, and now it remains to be seen whether George will follow in the Eton tradition, or buck it and start a new tradition of his own at Marlborough (which is his mother's alma mater). Read the original article on InStyle
The Independent
03-03-2025
- Business
- The Independent
Labour MP: VAT charge on private schools could make elitist system more elitist
The amount of VAT imposed on private schools should be based on turnover, to prevent smaller schools getting 'caught in this trap', a Labour MP has said. Rupa Huq raised concerns the Government's policy to apply 20% VAT to private school education and boarding fees could make an 'elitist system more elitist'. The policy, which came into effect earlier this year, is aimed at raising money to fund state schools. During a debate on the VAT changes, Ms Huq, who attended a private high school, said parents with 'genuine concerns' should not be demonised. Speaking in Westminster Hall, the MP for Ealing Central and Acton said: 'As a parent, I would never dream of going private, but I can understand and accept that people do do this.' She added: 'I can completely appreciate that people like my own parents at the time, make – and (Labour MP Alison Taylor) mentioned this as well – enormous sacrifices to send their children there. 'And I've heard this on the doorstep, you know 'we have the worst car, we never go on holiday', that was me in the 80s.' She continued: 'These are people who consider themselves working people, so again, the strap line of the Labour manifesto was no taxes on working people. So I think we should be careful with our rhetoric sometimes.' Ms Huq went on to say: 'The problem is the word private school implies a whole load of things, they are not all Eton. And some of the comms around this I think hasn't been done very sensitively.' Get a free fractional share worth up to £100. Capital at risk. Terms and conditions apply. 'You get your smaller Send school, you get your smaller faith school, those kind of people, they're not all Eton is what I'm trying to say, and I think some of these comms are based on a caricature.' Ms Huq said there could be 'unintended consequence' from the change and the policy will 'hand schools like Eton money back from Treasury coffers'. She added: 'These elitist private schools, Eton, they've actually done quite well out of this, because they can cash in on windfalls from these new VAT rules.' Intervening, Conservative MP for Windsor Jack Rankin, who has Eton in his constituency, said some of the points on Eton were 'a little bit unfair' because they 'do a lot in my community'. Ms Huq replied: 'It's interesting to learn that, but they are still are going to be quids-in after this.' Also intervening, Liberal Democrat MP Rachel Gilmour (Tiverton and Minehead) said: 'Will you give it up all this stuff about Eton? I speak as the mother of two old Etonians. 'I was a single parent, I worked three jobs. When (Damian Hinds) said there's more money from the old Etonian parents, there certainly aren't, not from this one. 'Eton hands out 100 boys plus a year completely free fees, they don't even have to pay for their pencils.' Earlier in the debate, Conservative former minister Damian Hinds said 'there is probably plenty of VAT to be had from the parents of boys at Eton' but the Government has 'ignored' the concerns of low-fee faith schools or schools for children with special educational needs and disabilities. Ms Huq later said: 'My worry is it will just make an elitist system more elitist.' Intervening, Conservative MP Gagan Mohindra (South West Hertfordshire) said: 'What does she expect her Government and party to do then?' Ms Huq replied: 'What I would suggest is possibly doing it on a turnover basis. So for your enormous schools that can afford it: yes. But then for the smaller ones that have been caught in this trap: no.' Treasury minister Torsten Bell said: 'No one during this session is judging other parents' choices … the best education for children is also what motivates the Government to break down barriers to opportunity, ensuring every child has access to high-quality education. 'Every child includes the 94% of children that attend state schools. The reforms we debate today, to VAT and business rates, will raise around £1.8 billion a year.' Mr Bell said the argument that private faith schools should be exempt is 'not compelling'. He added: 'An exemption would reduce the revenue available for pupils in state schools, including those of faith.'
