Norman Tebbit dies aged 94: Tory grandee and one of Margaret Thatcher’s most loyal supporters passes away
Tory grandee Norman Tebbit, who was one of Margaret Thatcher‘s most loyal supporters, has died, aged 94.
Lord Tebbit, a former airline pilot who had served in the RAF, yesterday died peacefully at home at 11.15pm.
In a statement, Lord Tebbit’s son, William, said: ‘His family ask that their privacy is respected at this time and a further statement regarding funeral arrangements will be made in due course.’
Kemi Badenoch today described him as ‘an icon in British politics’, with the Tory leader saying ‘his death will cause sadness across the political spectrum’.
While Keir Starmer called him a ‘major figure’ in politics who would be ‘missed by many’.
The Tory stalwart joined the Conservatives in 1946 and was known as the architect behind the scenes during the Thatcher era.
He was one of the most high profile survivors of the IRA’s bombing of the Grand Hotel in Brighton in 1984.
The striking image of an ashen-faced Lord Tebbit being stretchered from the wreckage wearing only his pyjamas became one of the enduring images of the IRA’s attack.
His political career took a backseat to his family life as his long-term wife, Margaret, required care after she was almost killed in the IRA bombing of the Grand Hotel in Brighton during the 1984 Tory Party Conference.
It took four hours for the couple to be rescued among the rubble with it said they held hands and whispered to each other in the dark.
He was first elected to the House of Commons in 1970, where he served in Baroness Thatcher’s government and gained a reputation for his no-nonsense style, earning him the nickname the ‘Chingford Skinhead’ by the puppet satirists at Spitting Image.
Tory grandee Norman Tebbit, who was one of Margaret Thatcher’s most loyal supporters, has died, aged 94
The striking image of an ashen-faced Lord Tebbit being stretchered from the wreckage wearing only his pyjamas became one of the enduring images of the IRA’s attack
In one of his most controversial speeches following riots in Handsworth and Brixton in 1981, with millions unemployed, he said that in the 1930s when faced with the dole his father ‘got on his bike and looked for work… till he found it.’
Tributes have poured in for Lord Tebbit, with former Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said saying he was a ‘titan of Conservative politics’.
Mr Sunak said his ‘resilience, conviction and service left a lasting mark on our party and our country’.
Downing Street said the PM’s thoughts are with the family of Lord Tebbit.
A Number 10 spokesman said: ‘The Prime Minister’s thoughts are with Norman Tebbit’s children and family at this difficult time.
‘Lord Tebbit was clearly a major figure in politics during the 1980s.
‘Many will remember the great strength he showed in the face of the atrocious IRA bombing at the Grand Hotel in Brighton and the courage that he and his wife showed in its aftermath, and he will be missed by many.’
Annunziata Rees-Mogg, the sibling of Jacob Rees-Mogg, said she was ‘very sad to hear’ about his death.
‘A life well lived and an extraordinary man. End of an era. He will be much missed. RIP,’ she wrote on X.
Tory MP and co-chair of the Conservatives Nigel Huddlestone said called Lord Tebbit ‘a true Tory grandee’.
He said he had ‘achieved great political heights from a modest background under the aspirational and meritocratic environment of the Thatcher era’.
Mr Huddlestone added: ‘He will be missed.’
Former Chancellor Nadhim Zahawi described Lord Tebbit as ‘a giant of Conservative politics and Conservative ideals’.
Mr Zahawi said: ‘A man who looked after his beloved wife beautifully after the horrific terror attack by the IRA.
Lord Tebbit pictured with his wife Lady Tebbit, who was left paralysed after the IRA bombing of the Grand Hotel in Brighton in 1984
Norman Tebbit with Margaret Thatcher waving at a Conservative Party Conference in 1982
Lord Tebbit is pictured with Baroness Thatcher here on election night on June 12, 1987
Lord Tebbit joined by Baroness Thatcher and Cecil Parkinson for his standing ovation after his speech at the Conservative Party Conference — October 15, 1981
Lord Tebbit is pictured here speaking at the Conservative Party Conference in 1982
‘A man who nurtured and befriended young conservatives like me. He was great company on a weekend in the country. RIP.’
Conservative peer Lord Dobbs paid tribute to Lord Norman Tebbit as ‘a man of tremendous courage’.
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Speaking to BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, Lord Dobbs, who served as the former employment secretary’s chief of staff, said the political veteran had been frail ‘for quite some time’.
Asked what Lord Tebbit was like as a person, Lord Dobbs said: ‘My emotions are incredibly mixed this morning, because he was such a good friend over so many decades.
‘But he was a man of great humour, great political insight… but he was a man of tremendous courage too.
‘Not only political courage, because he was willing to pursue policies that he thought were fundamentally right, even though at the time they might have been unpopular, but he was also a man of great personal courage too, the way that he dealt with the aftermath of the Brighton bombing.’
He added: ‘(He was) a remarkable man. I’m going to miss him tremendously, and I think politics tremendously misses people of that sort of character who believe so deeply in what they are pursuing that they risk everything for it.’
Once memorably described by Labour’s Michael Foot as a ‘semi-house-trained polecat’, Lord Tebbit revelled in his reputation as a political bruiser as the government drove through its controversial programme of free market reforms.
Exterior of the Grand Hotel here on October 12th, 1984, after a powerful IRA bomb aimed for Margaret Thatcher and her cabinet
Lord Tebbit, the former chairman of the Conservative Party, speaks in The Telegraph debate at the Royal Bath hotel in Bournemouth — October 2, 2006
Tributes have poured in for Lord Tebbit following his death, with Tory leader Kemi Badenoch describing him as ‘an icon in British politics’
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.
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Few who saw them would forget the grim TV pictures of the badly wounded Lord 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 Baroness Thatcher’s third general election victory in 1987, Lord 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.
Lord Tebbit and Timmy Mallett at the launch of the 1992 ‘Give the Gift of Sight’ appeal
Lord Tebbit is pictured here in 1985 at his desk in his role as Secretary of Trade and Industry
Lord Tebbit pictured in 1973 crouching beside a goat named Vanessa, who was the mascot of Upshire, a village in the Epping Forest
Lord Tebbit and his wife Lady Tebbit pictured outside the Grand Hotel in Brighton on the 25th anniversary of the bombing
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.
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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 Baroness 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 Baroness 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.
Lord Tebbit and Joe Ashton (left) at the ‘What the Papers Say Awards’ in London in 1985
Lord Tebbit attending the funeral of Baroness Thatcher at St Paul’s Cathedral in London 2013
Lord Tebbit is pictured here with Baroness Thatcher in 1985 appealing to delegates to stop the applause after his speech at the opening of the Tory Conference
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.
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For all their political affinity, his relations with Baroness 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.
Baroness Thatcher, the main intended target of the attack, escaped unscathed but it took four hours for fire crews to extricate Lord 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.
Lord Tebbit and Baroness Thatcher return to Brighton in 1986 to officially reopen The Grand Hotel 22 months after the IRA bombing
Lord Tebbit was first elected to the House of Commons in 1970, where he served in Baroness Thatcher’s government and gained a reputation for his no-nonsense style, earning him the nickname the ‘Chingford Skinhead’ by the puppet satirists at Spitting Image (pictured)
The 1987 general election campaign was marked by rows and tensions within the Tory camp amid suspicions among Baroness Thatcher and some of her allies that Lord Tebbit was more interested in advancing his own leadership ambitions.
It culminated on so-called ‘wobbly Thursday’ with Lord Young – who Baroness Thatcher had installed in No 10 to keep an eye on her chairman – allegedly grabbing Lord 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 Lord 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, Baroness 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.
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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.
