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Scotsman
10-07-2025
- Politics
- Scotsman
Readers' Letters: We could do with more politicians of Norman Tebbit's calibre
You don't have to be a Tory to admire the late Norman Tebbit's character, says reader Sign up to our daily newsletter – Regular news stories and round-ups from around Scotland direct to your inbox Sign up Thank you for signing up! Did you know with a Digital Subscription to The Scotsman, you can get unlimited access to the website including our premium content, as well as benefiting from fewer ads, loyalty rewards and much more. Learn More Sorry, there seem to be some issues. Please try again later. Submitting... As someone who has never voted Tory in my life, I must admit to a sneaky admiration for Norman Tebbit, who died on Tuesday. I suspect he rather enjoyed his nickname, coined by Michael Foot, 'an untrained polecat'. While thoroughly disagreeing with many of his policies and statements, I admired his unwavering honesty. Even his infamous call for the unemployed to 'get on their bikes' was a quote from his father. With him, you knew exactly what you were getting, and he never forgot his working class roots. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad His humane side was vividly demonstrated after surviving the Brighton bomb attack, hardly unscathed. His wife, Margaret, was left paralysed from the neck down and his devoted care of her for the rest of her life until her death a few years ago was truly the mark of the man. We could do with men and women of his calibre in government today, whatever their political views. Somehow, Norman Tebbit transcended party lines. Ian Petrie, Edinburgh Scotland failed Independence was a pipe dream. It is time to accept the Indy ship has sailed, it's a done deal and has been for the past 11 years. Today, we as a nation need to focus, we need to look after those in need and pave the way to allowing future generations to prosper again. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad Scotland's government has over the past 18 years deferred blame to Westminster and continues to do so, yet we in Scotland have nothing to complain about when it comes to spending per head of population. We have falling standards in education, health, a soft touch judicial system, delayed ferries, high drug deaths, high taxes and poor infrastructure, the blame for which lies firmly at the door of the Scottish Government as all are devolved matters. Fergus Ewing MSP has left the sinking ship, not because he has become a unionist but because he cares about his constituents and he cannot and will not align himself with continued propaganda and failed promises. He should be applauded for taking a common sense morally sound stance. Meanwhile, Nicola Sturgeon prepares to start a £75 per head book launch tour and continues to draw full MSP salary and benefits, yet decline in our services continue, with accountability appearing to be an unknown entity for these Nationalist members of the Scottish Parliament. The current trend away from stale governance will continue, with Reform on course to become the opposition in Holyrood next year. The sooner the better, in my humble opinion. Conrad Ritchie, Fraserburgh, Aberdeenshire Never happy Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad Many years ago, I worked on a North Sea oil and gas platform. We did a regular pattern of two weeks on, two weeks off. Only a handful of the workforce were employed by the operating company, of which I was one. The admin guys, who supervised the crew changes, would often say 'you always know when it's a Shell flight, the whining goes on long after the engines are shut down'. There was maybe a bit of truth in that. I was reminded of this when I read of Shona Robison's reaction to the close to £6 billion record boost to the ailing Health Service in Scotland, which she supervises. 'Scotland,' she said, 'is being short-changed'. The whining still goes on, long after the £6bn has been deposited in the SNP coffers. Without grievance, would the SNP cease to exist? Alexander McKay, Edinburgh Give us ID cards Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad Recent articles and letters in The Scotsman have drawn attention to the place of identity cards in controlling immigration. Many years ago a motion to introduce them was thrown out of a Liberal Party conference, but In 2006 a National Identity Card was introduced by a Labour Government, only to be abolished by the Conservative/Liberal coalition in 2011. More recently a student arriving on one of the boats was asked why so many illegal immigrants wanted to come to the UK. He gave two reasons; the first was language, in that many already spoke English, and the second reason was that, unlike most European countries, the UK does not have identity cards. The great majority of boat people are young men, coming to one of the most densely populated countries in Europe. At the moment we have a profusion of identity numbers, such as for passports, health, National Insurance, driving licences and tax. These could be combined with biometric data, and with better protection against misuse than there is at present. David Hannay, Gatehouse of Fleet, Dumfries and Galloway Expect exceptions We absolutely agree with Christopher Shaw's letter (9 July) regarding the appalling damaged caused to hedgerows and verges by wind farm developers during road-widening operations to accommodate the transportation of wind turbines in the middle of the bird breeding season. It is about as far removed from saving the planet and enhancing wildlife as could possibly be imagined. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad Monica Lennon MSP seeks to impose harsh penalties for causing irreversible environmental damage, including up to 20 years in prison, through her proposed Ecocide (Prevention) (Scotland) Bill. It seems to us that this particular act of wanton destruction would fall fair and square within the definition for prosecution, yet nowhere does the Bill mention renewable energy developments. We suspect and fear that the defence of 'necessity' will be rolled out to get renewables developers off the hook. Failing that, if any were ever successfully prosecuted for Ecocide should the bill become law, it is likely the Scottish Government will move sharpish to pass amending regulations that would let renewables developers off the hook – section 11 of the bill provides: 'The Scottish Ministers may by regulations make any incidental, supplementary, consequential, transitional, transitory or savings provision they consider appropriate for the purposes of, in connection with or for giving full effect to this Act.' Quelle surprise! Aileen Jackson, Uplawmoor, East Renfrewshire Meal tickets I note that the weather forecast for Edinburgh this weekend is predicting temperatures in the region of 27 degrees Celsius or higher. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad Can anyone enlighten me as to why cycle food delivery riders will all be wearing long trousers, hoodie with hood up over head, down gilet, balaclava, facemask and, understandably perhaps, dark glasses? Or do they have something to hide ? KJ Harvey, Edinburgh Hollow words I agree with almost everything Ian Petrie says in his letter of 8 July. But he is wrong to suggest the infamous Balfour Declaration made no mention of the Palestinian people. In fact the declaration stated that 'nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine'. That promise rings very hollow today. In fact in the 1940s the British government capitulated to a vicious campaign by Jewish terrorist groups, the Irgun and the Stern Gang, who planted bombs and kidnapped, tortured and murdered British soldiers, then boobytrapped their bodies. Britain handed back its mandate to the United Nations and left the Palestinians to their fate. The gangs turned their attention to the Palestinians, causing hundreds of thousands to flee, leaving the tragic consequences we are dealing with today. Robert Cairns, Ceres, Fife Chess game Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad It is intriguing to note that the British Museum will loan the Lewis Chessmen to France in exchange for the Bayeux Tapestry, set to return to England for the first time in more than 900 years. The Chessmen have become unlikely diplomatic pawns between Britain and France. In return for the Tapestry, which depicts the 1066 Norman invasion and the Battle of Hastings, the British Museum will loan the Sutton Hoo collection, the Lewis Chessmen, and other items to France. The pieces – a famous hoard of 93 objects – were discovered in 1831 on the Isle of Lewis. Eleven are in the National Museums Scotland (NMS) collection, while the remaining 82 are in the British Museum's collection, six of which are on loan to Museum nan Eilean in Lewis. It is clearly fantastic to be able to showcase the Chessmen to a wider audience and allow others to check them out. Alex Orr, Edinburgh It's just 10p Rumours that the government is likely to freeze the personal tax threshold have spurred headlines about pensioners being "dragged" into paying income tax for the first time. The current threshold for income tax is £12,570 in one year. The current maximum state pension is £11, 973. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad The "triple lock" could mean that the pension will rise by 5.2 per cent (£622) next year to £12,595.60. This is £25 over the threshold, meaning pensioners on the maximum state pension would pay 20 per cent tax on that £25 (£5) – an extra 10p a week. Those receiving smaller pensions would still not pay tax. While I appreciate this creates a precedent, surely it's a microscopic price to pay for our share of improved NHS and defence of the country. I can't understand why Keir Starmer doesn't explain this. It's simple, reassuring, arithmetic. Allan Sutherland, Stonehaven, Aberdeenshire Write to The Scotsman
The Sun
08-07-2025
- Politics
- The Sun
Norman Tebbit was Tory tough guy who fought unions, understood working class & hated wokery – Farage owes him a lot
NORMAN TEBBIT was a genuine Tory working-class hero. A giant among the towering figures of Margaret Thatcher 's decade as PM and a man seen by many, including himself, as her natural successor. 8 8 8 His hopes were destroyed by the IRA Brighton bomb which nearly killed the Iron Lady herself in 1984 and left Tebbit's wife, Margaret, paralysed for life. But through the 1990s he touched the hearts and spoke the language of millions of Tory voters as the party struggled to find the right leader. Norman Tebbit, who died on Monday age 94, was among the last true Thatcherites who drove Britain's 1970s leap from 'Sick Man of Europe' to global superpower. His legacy remains a vivid reminder of a bygone and perhaps a unrepeatable age when huge economic and global challenges were met by decisive and courageous leadership. It is a legacy which stands in stark contrast to the hand-wringing, shroud-waving deceit of modern politics. 'Whipped the pickets' Norman Tebbit was the so-called 'Chingford Skinhead' who broke the unions' destructive stranglehold over strike-plagued state-run industries and opened the door to privatisation. As Margaret Thatcher's employment secretary in 1981, he crushed union bullies and defeated pussy-footing Cabinet 'wets' desperate for peace at any price. Over the following decades, Britain blossomed. Strikes dried up, taxes fell, debt subsided and UK plc was set loose to trade and prosper. Tebbit was in the thick of it, vilified by Labour leader Michael Foot as a 'semi-house-trained polecat' and satirised by Spitting Image as a leather-clad, brass-knuckled thug. He accepted the abuse as a badge of honour, with a polecat prominent on his House of Lords crest. Norman Tebbit as a puppet on Spitting Image It was Norman Tebbit who led the Tory eurosceptics in the battle to prevent Britain joining the botched European single currency — the euro. He was vehemently opposed to PM John Major 's decision to sign the Maastricht Treaty binding Britain into the clutches of unelected Brussels bureaucrats. It is likely that Nigel Farage's Reform Party would not exist today without Norman Tebbit's crusade against EU moves to drain the UK of its sovereignty as a nation state. Today the Thatcher era which made Britain the envy of the world is a distant memory. Asked how he would react if he bumped into IRA mouthpieces Gerry Adams or Martin McGuinness, he said: 'As long as I was driving a heavy truck when I bumped into him I would laugh' 'Too many people in politics are rather poor material,' said Lord Tebbit shortly before he died. His words were vindicated last week by the anniversary of Sir Keir Starmer's catastrophic first year as Labour Prime Minister. Norman Beresford Tebbit was born into a working-class family in Ponders End, Middlesex. His father, Len, fought on the Western Front in World War One. His mother, Edith, a butcher's daughter, was 'a very tough lady'. Tebbit recently recalled: 'In 1926, at the heart of the general strike, she was delivering meat to customers in a pony and trap when a picket line tried to stop her. 'She simply whipped the pony first and, as they rode through the line, whipped the pickets too.' Tebbit left grammar school at 16 to join the Financial Times. He was incensed when ordered to join NATSOPA, the closed shop print union. He joined the RAF as a pilot, injuring his spine after crashing a Meteor jet. He joined the RAF as a pilot, injuring his spine after crashing a Meteor jet. He said: 'After escaping death, I always felt I was playing with the casino's money.' Later, as MP for Chingford, he deployed the instincts of a fighter pilot to pick off Mrs T's political enemies. The two allies fell out briefly when he suggested her image as 'That Bloody Woman' might discourage voters — but his blunt style offered her protection, diverting flak away from the PM. I first met Norman Tebbit while covering his 1983 election role as a caustic campaigner who sought and gave no quarter. 8 8 8 In Brighton the following year, I watched him being stretchered in agony from the rubble of the Grand Hotel, a survivor of an IRA murder attempt on Margaret Thatcher and her Cabinet. Tebbit's beloved wife, Margaret, a nurse, emerged paralysed for life after being crushed under a collapsed wall. Asked how he would react if he bumped into IRA mouthpieces Gerry Adams or Martin McGuinness, he said: 'As long as I was driving a heavy truck when I bumped into him I would laugh.' As he took a back seat from politics to care for his beloved wife, Tebbit took up pheasant shooting and became a crack shot. 'Every time I pull the trigger I am saying to myself either 'Adams' or 'McGuinness'. It helps,' he said. Lady Tebbit died in 2020, aged 86, and the couple had three children. Norman Tebbit was savaged as heartless after telling the jobless to get 'on yer bike'. But his words had been twisted. He had been responding to a suggestion that the 1981 Brixton riots were a natural reaction to unemployment. 'Enemy of the people' Tebbit said: 'I grew up in the '30s with an unemployed father. He didn't riot. He got on his bike and looked for work, and he kept looking till he found it.' He loathed the loony left who, as today, wielded huge power in local authorities and nationalised industry. He was accused of being a 'fascist' after bringing in laws curbing trade union power. This was at a time when the miners leader Arthur 'King Coal' Scargill, an avowed Marxist, had declared war on Margaret Thatcher's democratically elected government. Jack Jones, leader of the mighty Transport and General Workers Union, was a paid Kremlin spy. And Hugh Scanlon, of the strike-happy Engineering Union, was a card-carrying Communist. These, said Tebbit, were the 'real enemy of the people'. In 1979 when Thatcher won power, Britain was losing 30million working days in strike action a year. Thanks to Tebbit's laws, the number was slashed to one million by the time she left office. One of his last political jobs, as Tory Party chairman, was masterminding her 1987 landslide victory. The next day, as Mrs T celebrated her third election victory, I broke the story of Norman Tebbit's sensational decision to quit the battlefield and care for his paralysed wife. He was walking away from his best chance of one day becoming PM. Mrs Thatcher was dismayed. 'I didn't want him to go,' she told friends. Later, as Lord Tebbit, he was disgusted by the Tory drift from Thatcherism, first under John Major and then David Cameron. Major, he said, 'combines the mulishness of a weak man with stupidity'. And he summed up the 2010 Lib-Con coalition as 'David Cameron and the bloody tieless and gormless lot'. Lord Tebbit was a lifelong hero to grassroots Tories, echoing their fury over the bullying EU, the threat to society from 'woke madness' and uncontrolled mass immigration He was aghast when Cameron and Chancellor George Osborne hailed Labour Tony Blair as 'The Master'. As an IRA target, he despised Blair for releasing hundreds of convicted IRA terrorists while putting British squaddies in the dock. He said: 'Kneecappers, kidnappers, arsonists and killers have been set free. But their victims remain imprisoned within broken bodies. 'Some imprisoned in grief for their loved ones.' Lord Tebbit was a lifelong hero to grassroots Tories, echoing their fury over the bullying EU, the threat to society from 'woke madness' and uncontrolled mass immigration. The former Sun columnist famously devised a 'cricket test' for migrants aiming to settle in this country. 'A large proportion of Britain's Asian population fail to pass the cricket test,' he said. 'Which side do they cheer for? It's an interesting test. Are you still harking back to where you came from or where you are?' He rebuked Cameron for turning his back on Thatcherism and rejecting the eternal political values which won voters of all parties. These included 'low tax, controlled immigration, schools that teach basic skills rather than political correctness, and the belief that we can govern ourselves and make our own laws'. He added: 'These are the issues which would bring disenchanted one-time Tory voters and disenchanted Labour voters alike to support a government,' he said. That was in 2012. But these were core Conservative policies which today's floundering Tory Party could use in their next election manifesto. 8
Sky News
08-07-2025
- Politics
- Sky News
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 background. He 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. 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.
Leader Live
08-07-2025
- Politics
- Leader Live
Tebbit the Tory hard man who took on the trade unions
To political opponents, the comment – a paraphrase of his exhortation to the unemployed to go out and look for work – encapsulated what they saw as the callous indifference of the Conservatives to the rising joblessness of the 1980s. Once memorably described by Labour's Michael Foot as a 'semi-house-trained polecat', Mr Tebbit revelled in his reputation as a political bruiser as the government drove through its controversial programme of free market reforms. As employment secretary, he piloted key legislation which diluted the power of the trade union 'closed shop' and weakened the unions' immunity from civil damages. He suffered grave injuries in the 1984 Brighton bombing, which left his wife, Margaret, paralysed from the neck down and tore a hole in his side which needed regular treatment for years afterwards. Few who saw them would forget the grim TV pictures of the badly wounded Mr Tebbit being eased gingerly out of the rubble of the Grand Hotel after it was ripped apart in a massive IRA blast. However his ordeal did nothing to diminish his appetite for political combat and the man dubbed the 'Chingford skinhead' – a reference to his Essex constituency – returned to Westminster as abrasive and vitriolic as ever. But for all his reputation for thuggishness, he was privately a kindly man who could mix amiably with those whom he bitterly scorned in public. After masterminding Mrs Thatcher's third general election victory in 1987, Mr Tebbit stepped down from the government so that he could spend more time caring for his wife. He nevertheless remained politically active, proving to be a thorn in the side of her successor, John Major, as wrangling over Europe tore the Tories apart in the 1990s. He sparked controversy with his advocacy of the so-called 'cricket test' – suggesting which side British Asians supported in internationals should be seen as an indicator of their true loyalties – leading to accusations of racism. Born on March 29 1931 in Ponders End, Middlesex, Norman Beresford Tebbit was the son of Leonard Tebbit, a pawnbroker, and his wife, Edith. After attending Edmonton County Grammar, he took a job aged 16 as a trainee journalist at The Financial Times, where the requirement for him to join a trade union in order to be employed sowed a determination to break the power of the closed shop. Following national service with the RAF – when he flew Meteor and Vampire jets, narrowly surviving one terrifying crash – he joined the airline BOAC as a long-haul pilot and navigator. His previous unhappy encounter with the unions did not stop him becoming a highly effective official for the pilots' union, Balpa. He entered Parliament in 1970 as Conservative MP for Epping, joining the right-wing Monday Club. When Mrs Thatcher became party leader in 1975, he strongly backed her agenda of free market reforms and curbing the power of the unions which had brought down Edward Heath's Tory government. She in turn encouraged him to harass Labour ministers from the backbenches – he made headlines after accusing Michael Foot of 'pure undiluted fascism' during a heated exchange over closed shops. Following the Tories' general election victory of 1979, she made him a junior trade minister, promoting him to the cabinet as employment secretary two years later. Certainly he was cut from a very different cloth than a previous generation of Conservative ministers – the patrician Harold Macmillan once sniffily remarked: 'Heard a chap on the radio this morning talking with a cockney accent. They tell me he is one of Her Majesty's ministers.' He was, however, tailor-made for Mrs Thatcher, spearheading the government's legislative assault on the power of the unions – who had brought down the last Tory administration of Edward Heath – with his Employment Act. It was following inner city riots in Handsworth and Brixton in 1981 that he made the infamous remark which led to him being dubbed 'Onyerbike'. Rejecting suggestions the violence was a natural response to rising unemployment, he retorted: 'I grew up in the Thirties with an unemployed father. He didn't riot. He got on his bike and looked for work, and he kept looking till he found it.' Such comments fuelled his hardline 'Nasty Norm' reputation – the satirical puppet show Spitting Image memorably portrayed him as a leather-jacketed thug brutally beating up political opponents and fellow ministers alike. For all their political affinity, his relations with Mrs Thatcher did not always run smoothly and he later recalled there were occasions when he left No 10 unsure whether he would still have a job by the time he had returned to his department. 'But I was never frightened of her,' he remembered. 'The most she could do was sack me. I didn't see any point in not standing up to her.' Following the Tories' 1983 general election victory, there was a move to trade and industry but his life was turned upside down the following year when an IRA bomb tore through Brighton's Grand Hotel during the Conservative Party conference. Mrs Thatcher, the main intended target of the attack, escaped unscathed but it took four hours for fire crews to extricate Mr Tebbit and his wife from the wreckage. While Mrs Tebbit was left needing round-the-clock care for the rest of her life, he recovered to return to the political fray with his appetite for confrontation very much intact. The prime minister believed his populist instincts – he was described as the personification of 'Essex man' – made him the ideal candidate to plot her bid for a third term in No 10 and in 1985 she made him Tory Party chairman. She was however reportedly not amused when he urged her to take more of a back seat in campaigning after polling showed her leadership – the so-called 'that bloody woman' factor – was turning off voters. The 1987 general election campaign was marked by rows and tensions within the Tory camp amid suspicions among Mrs Thatcher and some of her allies that Mr Tebbit was more interested in advancing his own leadership ambitions. It culminated on so-called 'wobbly Thursday' with Lord Young – who Mrs Thatcher had installed in No 10 to keep an eye on her chairman – allegedly grabbing Mr Tebbit by the lapels and yelling: 'Norman, listen to me, we are about to lose this f****** election'. Nevertheless, come polling day, the Conservatives were again returned with a three-figure majority and Mr Tebbit appeared at the window of Central Office alongside the prime minister to enjoy the acclaim of the party faithful. It was to be the apogee of his frontline political career, and in the aftermath of victory he announced he was leaving government so he could devote more time to looking after his wife. For all the difficulties of the preceding months, Mrs Thatcher said she 'bitterly regretted' losing a kindred spirit from the cabinet. Having once been seen as her natural successor, it meant giving up any hope of taking the top job, a lost opportunity which, he later acknowledged, was a source of regret for him also. He remained politically active however – particularly on Europe – and, after stepping down as an MP in 1992, he was made a life peer. In the House of Lords, he formed a new alliance with Baroness Thatcher (who had also been ennobled) to oppose the Maastricht Treaty, signed by John Major, which created the modern European Union. That year he brought the Tory party conference to its feet with a rabble-rousing speech condemning the agreement, much to the fury of Mr Major who accused him of hypocrisy and disloyalty. In later years, Lord Tebbit continued to attract controversy with outspoken remarks on a range of issues from immigration to homosexuality. He refused to attend services conducted by the dean of St Edmundsbury Cathedral after he entered into a civil partnership and warned that legislation to allow same-sex marriage passed under David Cameron was alienating the Tory faithful. He was the author of a number of books including The Game Cookbook – featuring his favourite recipes for partridge, grouse, pheasant and the like – which proved to be a surprise hit in 2009. In 2020, his wife, Lady Tebbit, died aged 86. He never forgave the IRA terrorist responsible for her terrible injuries. Lord Tebbit is survived by two sons and a daughter.
South Wales Guardian
08-07-2025
- Politics
- South Wales Guardian
Tebbit the Tory hard man who took on the trade unions
To political opponents, the comment – a paraphrase of his exhortation to the unemployed to go out and look for work – encapsulated what they saw as the callous indifference of the Conservatives to the rising joblessness of the 1980s. Once memorably described by Labour's Michael Foot as a 'semi-house-trained polecat', Mr Tebbit revelled in his reputation as a political bruiser as the government drove through its controversial programme of free market reforms. As employment secretary, he piloted key legislation which diluted the power of the trade union 'closed shop' and weakened the unions' immunity from civil damages. He suffered grave injuries in the 1984 Brighton bombing, which left his wife, Margaret, paralysed from the neck down and tore a hole in his side which needed regular treatment for years afterwards. Few who saw them would forget the grim TV pictures of the badly wounded Mr Tebbit being eased gingerly out of the rubble of the Grand Hotel after it was ripped apart in a massive IRA blast. However his ordeal did nothing to diminish his appetite for political combat and the man dubbed the 'Chingford skinhead' – a reference to his Essex constituency – returned to Westminster as abrasive and vitriolic as ever. But for all his reputation for thuggishness, he was privately a kindly man who could mix amiably with those whom he bitterly scorned in public. After masterminding Mrs Thatcher's third general election victory in 1987, Mr Tebbit stepped down from the government so that he could spend more time caring for his wife. He nevertheless remained politically active, proving to be a thorn in the side of her successor, John Major, as wrangling over Europe tore the Tories apart in the 1990s. He sparked controversy with his advocacy of the so-called 'cricket test' – suggesting which side British Asians supported in internationals should be seen as an indicator of their true loyalties – leading to accusations of racism. Born on March 29 1931 in Ponders End, Middlesex, Norman Beresford Tebbit was the son of Leonard Tebbit, a pawnbroker, and his wife, Edith. After attending Edmonton County Grammar, he took a job aged 16 as a trainee journalist at The Financial Times, where the requirement for him to join a trade union in order to be employed sowed a determination to break the power of the closed shop. Following national service with the RAF – when he flew Meteor and Vampire jets, narrowly surviving one terrifying crash – he joined the airline BOAC as a long-haul pilot and navigator. His previous unhappy encounter with the unions did not stop him becoming a highly effective official for the pilots' union, Balpa. He entered Parliament in 1970 as Conservative MP for Epping, joining the right-wing Monday Club. When Mrs Thatcher became party leader in 1975, he strongly backed her agenda of free market reforms and curbing the power of the unions which had brought down Edward Heath's Tory government. She in turn encouraged him to harass Labour ministers from the backbenches – he made headlines after accusing Michael Foot of 'pure undiluted fascism' during a heated exchange over closed shops. Following the Tories' general election victory of 1979, she made him a junior trade minister, promoting him to the cabinet as employment secretary two years later. Certainly he was cut from a very different cloth than a previous generation of Conservative ministers – the patrician Harold Macmillan once sniffily remarked: 'Heard a chap on the radio this morning talking with a cockney accent. They tell me he is one of Her Majesty's ministers.' He was, however, tailor-made for Mrs Thatcher, spearheading the government's legislative assault on the power of the unions – who had brought down the last Tory administration of Edward Heath – with his Employment Act. It was following inner city riots in Handsworth and Brixton in 1981 that he made the infamous remark which led to him being dubbed 'Onyerbike'. Rejecting suggestions the violence was a natural response to rising unemployment, he retorted: 'I grew up in the Thirties with an unemployed father. He didn't riot. He got on his bike and looked for work, and he kept looking till he found it.' Such comments fuelled his hardline 'Nasty Norm' reputation – the satirical puppet show Spitting Image memorably portrayed him as a leather-jacketed thug brutally beating up political opponents and fellow ministers alike. For all their political affinity, his relations with Mrs Thatcher did not always run smoothly and he later recalled there were occasions when he left No 10 unsure whether he would still have a job by the time he had returned to his department. 'But I was never frightened of her,' he remembered. 'The most she could do was sack me. I didn't see any point in not standing up to her.' Following the Tories' 1983 general election victory, there was a move to trade and industry but his life was turned upside down the following year when an IRA bomb tore through Brighton's Grand Hotel during the Conservative Party conference. Mrs Thatcher, the main intended target of the attack, escaped unscathed but it took four hours for fire crews to extricate Mr Tebbit and his wife from the wreckage. While Mrs Tebbit was left needing round-the-clock care for the rest of her life, he recovered to return to the political fray with his appetite for confrontation very much intact. The prime minister believed his populist instincts – he was described as the personification of 'Essex man' – made him the ideal candidate to plot her bid for a third term in No 10 and in 1985 she made him Tory Party chairman. She was however reportedly not amused when he urged her to take more of a back seat in campaigning after polling showed her leadership – the so-called 'that bloody woman' factor – was turning off voters. The 1987 general election campaign was marked by rows and tensions within the Tory camp amid suspicions among Mrs Thatcher and some of her allies that Mr Tebbit was more interested in advancing his own leadership ambitions. It culminated on so-called 'wobbly Thursday' with Lord Young – who Mrs Thatcher had installed in No 10 to keep an eye on her chairman – allegedly grabbing Mr Tebbit by the lapels and yelling: 'Norman, listen to me, we are about to lose this f****** election'. Nevertheless, come polling day, the Conservatives were again returned with a three-figure majority and Mr Tebbit appeared at the window of Central Office alongside the prime minister to enjoy the acclaim of the party faithful. It was to be the apogee of his frontline political career, and in the aftermath of victory he announced he was leaving government so he could devote more time to looking after his wife. For all the difficulties of the preceding months, Mrs Thatcher said she 'bitterly regretted' losing a kindred spirit from the cabinet. Having once been seen as her natural successor, it meant giving up any hope of taking the top job, a lost opportunity which, he later acknowledged, was a source of regret for him also. He remained politically active however – particularly on Europe – and, after stepping down as an MP in 1992, he was made a life peer. In the House of Lords, he formed a new alliance with Baroness Thatcher (who had also been ennobled) to oppose the Maastricht Treaty, signed by John Major, which created the modern European Union. That year he brought the Tory party conference to its feet with a rabble-rousing speech condemning the agreement, much to the fury of Mr Major who accused him of hypocrisy and disloyalty. In later years, Lord Tebbit continued to attract controversy with outspoken remarks on a range of issues from immigration to homosexuality. He refused to attend services conducted by the dean of St Edmundsbury Cathedral after he entered into a civil partnership and warned that legislation to allow same-sex marriage passed under David Cameron was alienating the Tory faithful. He was the author of a number of books including The Game Cookbook – featuring his favourite recipes for partridge, grouse, pheasant and the like – which proved to be a surprise hit in 2009. In 2020, his wife, Lady Tebbit, died aged 86. He never forgave the IRA terrorist responsible for her terrible injuries. Lord Tebbit is survived by two sons and a daughter.
