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Norman Beresford Tebbit, Baron Tebbit (born 29 March 1931) is a British politician. A member of the
Conservative Party
The Conservative Party is a name used by many political parties around the world. These political parties are generally right-wing though their exact ideologies can range from center-right to far-right.
Political parties called The Conservative P ...
, he served in the Cabinet from 1981 to 1987 as
Secretary of State for Employment (1981–1983),
Secretary of State for Trade and Industry
The secretary of state for business, energy and industrial strategy, is a secretary of state in the Government of the United Kingdom, with responsibility for the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy. The incumbent is a memb ...
(1983–1985), and
Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster
The chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster is a ministerial office in the Government of the United Kingdom. The position is the second highest ranking minister in the Cabinet Office, immediately after the Prime Minister, and senior to the Minist ...
and
Chairman of the Conservative Party
The chairman of the Conservative Party in the United Kingdom is responsible for party administration and overseeing the Conservative Campaign Headquarters, formerly Conservative Central Office.
When the Conservatives are in government, the off ...
(1985–1987). He was a
Member of Parliament
A member of parliament (MP) is the representative in parliament of the people who live in their electoral district. In many countries with bicameral parliaments, this term refers only to members of the lower house since upper house members of ...
(MP) from 1970 to 1992, representing the constituencies of
Epping Epping may refer to:
Places
Australia
* Epping, New South Wales, a suburb of Sydney
** Epping railway station, Sydney
* Electoral district of Epping, the corresponding seat in the New South Wales Legislative Assembly
* Epping Forest, Kearns, a he ...
(1970–1974) and
Chingford
Chingford is a town in east London, England, within the London Borough of Waltham Forest. The town is approximately north-east of Charing Cross, with Waltham Abbey to the north, Woodford Green and Buckhurst Hill to the east, Walthamstow t ...
(1974–1992).
In 1984, Tebbit was injured in the
Provisional Irish Republican Army
The Irish Republican Army (IRA; ), also known as the Provisional Irish Republican Army, and informally as the Provos, was an Irish republican paramilitary organisation that sought to end British rule in Northern Ireland, facilitate Irish reun ...
's
bombing of the
Grand Hotel in Brighton, where he was staying during the Conservative Party Conference. His wife
Margaret was left permanently disabled after the explosion.
He left the cabinet after the
1987 general election to care for his wife.
[Tebbit, p. 332.]
Tebbit considered standing for the Conservative leadership following
Margaret Thatcher
Margaret Hilda Thatcher, Baroness Thatcher (; 13 October 19258 April 2013) was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1979 to 1990 and Leader of the Conservative Party (UK), Leader of the Conservative Party from 1975 to 1990. S ...
's resignation in 1990, but came to the decision not to stand as he had earlier made a commitment to his wife to retire from front-line politics.
He did not stand for re-election as MP for Chingford in 1992, and was given a life peerage to sit in the
House of Lords
The House of Lords, also known as the House of Peers, is the Bicameralism, upper house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Membership is by Life peer, appointment, Hereditary peer, heredity or Lords Spiritual, official function. Like the ...
as Baron Tebbit, of
Chingford
Chingford is a town in east London, England, within the London Borough of Waltham Forest. The town is approximately north-east of Charing Cross, with Waltham Abbey to the north, Woodford Green and Buckhurst Hill to the east, Walthamstow t ...
. He retired from the House on 31 March 2022.
Early life and career before politics
Born in
Ponders End
Ponders End is the southeasternmost part of Enfield, north London, centred on the Hertford Road. Situated to the west of the River Lee Navigation, it became industrialised through the 19th century, similar to the Lea Valley in neighbouring Ed ...
,
Middlesex
Middlesex (; abbreviation: Middx) is a Historic counties of England, historic county in South East England, southeast England. Its area is almost entirely within the wider urbanised area of London and mostly within the Ceremonial counties of ...
, to working-class parents Leonard and Edith Tebbit, he went to
Edmonton County Grammar School,
which was then an academically selective state school in north London.
At the age of 16, Tebbit got a job with the ''
Financial Times
The ''Financial Times'' (''FT'') is a British daily newspaper printed in broadsheet and published digitally that focuses on business and economic current affairs. Based in London, England, the paper is owned by a Japanese holding company, Nik ...
'' and had to join
NATSOPA. Disliking rules that caused members who criticized union officials to be fined or expelled (and thus lose their jobs), he recalled vowing to "break the power of the
closed shop
A pre-entry closed shop (or simply closed shop) is a form of union security agreement under which the employer agrees to hire union members only, and employees must remain members of the union at all times to remain employed. This is different fr ...
".
In November 1950, Tebbit was commissioned into the
Royal Air Force
The Royal Air Force (RAF) is the United Kingdom's air and space force. It was formed towards the end of the First World War on 1 April 1918, becoming the first independent air force in the world, by regrouping the Royal Flying Corps (RFC) and ...
for
national service
National service is the system of voluntary government service, usually military service. Conscription is mandatory national service. The term ''national service'' comes from the United Kingdom's National Service (Armed Forces) Act 1939.
The ...
in the rank of
pilot officer
Pilot officer (Plt Off officially in the RAF; in the RAAF and RNZAF; formerly P/O in all services, and still often used in the RAF) is the lowest commissioned rank in the Royal Air Force and the air forces of many other Commonwealth countri ...
. He was promoted to
flying officer in April 1952. During his time in the RAF Tebbit flew
Meteor
A meteoroid () is a small rocky or metallic body in outer space.
Meteoroids are defined as objects significantly smaller than asteroids, ranging in size from grains to objects up to a meter wide. Objects smaller than this are classified as micr ...
and
Vampire
A vampire is a mythical creature that subsists by feeding on the Vitalism, vital essence (generally in the form of blood) of the living. In European folklore, vampires are undead, undead creatures that often visited loved ones and caused mi ...
jets. In July 1954, at
RAF Waterbeach
Royal Air Force Waterbeach or more simply RAF Waterbeach is a former Royal Air Force station located in Waterbeach, Cambridgeshire which is about north of Cambridge, England. The site was transferred to the Royal Engineers, part of the British ...
near
Cambridge
Cambridge ( ) is a university city and the county town in Cambridgeshire, England. It is located on the River Cam approximately north of London. As of the 2021 United Kingdom census, the population of Cambridge was 145,700. Cambridge bec ...
, he had to escape from a burning Meteor 8 by breaking open the
canopy
Canopy may refer to:
Plants
* Canopy (biology), aboveground portion of plant community or crop (including forests)
* Canopy (grape), aboveground portion of grapes
Religion and ceremonies
* Baldachin or canopy of state, typically placed over an ...
, unknowingly fracturing two of his
vertebra
The spinal column, a defining synapomorphy shared by nearly all vertebrates, Hagfish are believed to have secondarily lost their spinal column is a moderately flexible series of vertebrae (singular vertebra), each constituting a characteristi ...
e in the accident.
FlyPast
' (Key Publishing) magazine interview (in May 2014) with Norman Wells, October 2014 edition.
On leaving the RAF, he joined
BOAC
British Overseas Airways Corporation (BOAC) was the British state-owned airline created in 1939 by the merger of Imperial Airways and British Airways Ltd. It continued operating overseas services throughout World War II. After the passi ...
in 1953 as a navigator and pilot, while initially continuing to fly in the Royal Auxiliary Air Force with
604 (County of Middlesex) Squadron at
North Weald
North Weald Bassett or simply North Weald is a village and civil parish in the Epping Forest district of Essex, England. The village is within the North Weald Ridges and Valleys landscape area.
A market is held every Saturday and Bank Holiday Mo ...
in Essex. Of his airline navigation training, he later said: "In those days it was a considerable academic syllabus. You had to be up to speed on
spherical trigonometry
Spherical trigonometry is the branch of spherical geometry that deals with the metrical relationships between the sides and angles of spherical triangles, traditionally expressed using trigonometric functions. On the sphere, geodesics are gr ...
to get through it".
During his time at BOAC, he was an official in the
British Air Line Pilots' Association
The British Airline Pilots’ Association (BALPA) is the professional association and registered trade union for UK pilots. BALPA represents the views and interests of pilots, campaigning on contractual, legal and health issues affecting its m ...
. He flew
Avro Yorks,
Argonauts,
Britannias,
DC7Cs and the
Boeing 707.
Member of Parliament
Tebbit was elected as MP for
Epping Epping may refer to:
Places
Australia
* Epping, New South Wales, a suburb of Sydney
** Epping railway station, Sydney
* Electoral district of Epping, the corresponding seat in the New South Wales Legislative Assembly
* Epping Forest, Kearns, a he ...
in
1970
Events
January
* January 1 – Unix time epoch reached at 00:00:00 UTC.
* January 5 – The 7.1 Tonghai earthquake shakes Tonghai County, Yunnan province, China, with a maximum Mercalli intensity scale, Mercalli intensity of X (''Extrem ...
and then for
Chingford
Chingford is a town in east London, England, within the London Borough of Waltham Forest. The town is approximately north-east of Charing Cross, with Waltham Abbey to the north, Woodford Green and Buckhurst Hill to the east, Walthamstow t ...
in
February 1974
The following events occurred in February 1974:
February 1, 1974 (Friday)
*Joelma fire, A fire killed 177 people and injured 293 others in the 23-story Joelma Building at São Paulo in Brazil. Another 11 later died of their injuries. The bl ...
. He is recorded as an MP member of the
Conservative Monday Club
The Conservative Monday Club (usually known as the Monday Club) is a British political pressure group, aligned with the Conservative Party, though no longer endorsed by it. It also has links to the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) and Ulster Unioni ...
in 1970.
Tebbit's first intervention as an MP was to ask a question of the then Minister at the
Board of Trade,
Frederick Corfield
Sir Frederick Vernon Corfield (1 June 1915 – 25 August 2005) was a British Conservative politician and minister.
Early life
Corfield was the son of Brigadier Frederick Alleyne Corfield of the British Indian Army and Mary Graham Vernon, daugh ...
, on 6 July 1970. His question was on the subject of a
crash of a Comet-4 aircraft in Spain on 3 July, which killed all the 112 people on board at the time.
In 1975, six men (the 'Ferrybridge Six') were dismissed from their jobs because of the introduction of a closed shop and were denied
unemployment benefit
Unemployment benefits, also called unemployment insurance, unemployment payment, unemployment compensation, or simply unemployment, are payments made by authorized bodies to unemployed people. In the United States, benefits are funded by a comp ...
. The
Secretary of State for Employment,
Michael Foot
Michael Mackintosh Foot (23 July 19133 March 2010) was a British Labour Party politician who served as Labour Leader from 1980 to 1983. Foot began his career as a journalist on ''Tribune'' and the ''Evening Standard''. He co-wrote the 1940 p ...
, commented: "A person who declines to fall in with new conditions of employment which result from a collective agreement may well be considered to have brought about his own dismissal". Tebbit accused Foot of "pure undiluted
fascism
Fascism is a far-right, authoritarian, ultra-nationalist political ideology and movement,: "extreme militaristic nationalism, contempt for electoral democracy and political and cultural liberalism, a belief in natural social hierarchy an ...
" and affirmed that this "left Mr Foot exposed as a bitter opponent of
freedom
Freedom is understood as either having the ability to act or change without constraint or to possess the power and resources to fulfill one's purposes unhindered. Freedom is often associated with liberty and autonomy in the sense of "giving on ...
and
liberty
Liberty is the ability to do as one pleases, or a right or immunity enjoyed by prescription or by grant (i.e. privilege). It is a synonym for the word freedom.
In modern politics, liberty is understood as the state of being free within society fr ...
". The next day (2 December) ''The Times'' first leader —titled ""—quoted Tebbit and went on:
Mr Foot's doctrine is intolerable because it is a violation of the liberty of the ordinary man in his job. Mr Tebbit is therefore using fascism in a legitimate descriptive sense when he accuses Mr. Foot of it. We perhaps need to revive the phrase "social fascism
Social fascism (also socio-fascism) was a theory that was supported by the Communist International (Comintern) and affiliated communist parties in the early 1930s that held that social democracy was a variant of fascism because it stood in the way ...
" to describe the modern British development of the corporate state and its bureaucratic attack on personal liberty. The question is not therefore: "is Mr. Foot a fascist?" but "does Mr. Foot know he is a fascist?"
During the
Grunwick dispute
The Grunwick dispute was a British industrial dispute involving trade union recognition at the Grunwick Film Processing Laboratories in Chapter Road, Dollis Hill in the London suburb of Willesden, that led to a two-year strike between 1976 and 197 ...
, when workers went on strike over pay and working conditions, the owner George Ward refused to recognise their trade union, and there was a split in the Conservative Shadow Cabinet between the conciliatory approach of
Jim Prior
James Michael Leathes Prior, Baron Prior, (11 October 1927 – 12 December 2016) was a British Conservative Party politician. A Member of Parliament from 1959 to 1987, he represented the Suffolk constituency of Lowestoft until 1983 and then ...
, the Shadow Employment Secretary, and
Keith Joseph. Tebbit involved himself in that dispute by making a controversial speech on 12 September 1977, in which he said:
Inside Britain there is a ... threat from the Marxist collectivist totalitarians. ... Just to state that fact is to be accused of 'union-bashing'. ... Such people are to be found in the Conservative, Liberal and Labour Parties. Their politics may be different but such people share the morality of Laval and Pétain ... they are willing not only to tolerate evil, but to excuse it. ... Both Jim Prior and Keith Joseph know that George Ward and Grunwick are not perfect, nor was Czechoslovakia perfect in 1938. But if Ward and Grunwick are destroyed by the red fascists, then, as in 1938, we will have to ask, whose turn is it next? Yes, it is like 1938. We can all see the evil, but the doctrine of appeasement is still to be heard.
Tebbit was accused of comparing Prior to Laval and at that year's Conservative Party conference, he attempted to avoid personalising the issue, and openly splitting the party, without retracting what he had said. Tebbit said of these differences: "I'm a hawk—but no kamikaze. And Jim's a dove—but he's not chicken".
During a debate in Parliament on 2 March 1978,
Michael Foot
Michael Mackintosh Foot (23 July 19133 March 2010) was a British Labour Party politician who served as Labour Leader from 1980 to 1983. Foot began his career as a journalist on ''Tribune'' and the ''Evening Standard''. He co-wrote the 1940 p ...
labelled Tebbit a "semi-house-trained
polecat
Polecat is a common name for several mustelid species in the order Carnivora and subfamilies Ictonychinae and Mustelinae. Polecats do not form a single taxonomic rank (i.e. clade). The name is applied to several species with broad similarities ...
" in response to a question from Tebbit asking if he accepted that the legislation being proposed that made it compulsory for people to join a Trade Union was an act of Fascism. When he was made Lord Tebbit in 1992, he chose a polecat as one of the symbols on his coat of arms. Later, in the debate Tebbit asked Foot whether he would "put a bridle on his foul-mouthed tongue".
1979 government
After the Conservative Party regained power after the
general election of 1979, Tebbit was appointed Under-Secretary at the Ministry of Trade.
In the
September 1981 Cabinet reshuffle, Thatcher appointed Tebbit as
Employment Secretary. This was seen as a shift to a 'tougher' approach to the trade unions than had been the case under Tebbit's predecessor,
James Prior
James Michael Leathes Prior, Baron Prior, (11 October 1927 – 12 December 2016) was a British Conservative Party politician. A Member of Parliament from 1959 to 1987, he represented the Suffolk constituency of Lowestoft until 1983 and then ...
. Tebbit introduced the
Employment Act 1982
The Employment Act 1982 is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom (1982 c. 46), mainly relating to trade unions. It increased compensation for those dismissed because of the closed shop and restricted the immunities enjoyed by trade unio ...
which raised the level of compensation for those unfairly dismissed from a closed shop and prohibited closed shops unless 80% of relevant workers approved the arrangement in periodic ballots. It also removed trade unions' immunity from liability in tort – i.e. made trade unions liable for civil damages if they committed unlawful acts, and made injunctions possible against such acts. In his memoirs Tebbit said that the 1982 Act was his "greatest achievement in Government".
In March 2021 Tebbit was reported by ''
The Times
''The Times'' is a British daily national newspaper based in London. It began in 1785 under the title ''The Daily Universal Register'', adopting its current name on 1 January 1788. ''The Times'' and its sister paper ''The Sunday Times'' (fou ...
'' to have said, during a
Zoom
Zoom may refer to:
Technology Computing
* Zoom (software), videoconferencing application
* Page zooming, the ability to magnify or shrink a portion of a page on a computer display
* Zooming user interface, a graphical interface allowing for image ...
meeting, that Special Branch had regularly spied on union leaders while he was employment secretary.
In the aftermath of the 1981 riots in
Handsworth and
Brixton
Brixton is a district in south London, part of the London Borough of Lambeth, England. The area is identified in the London Plan as one of 35 major centres in Greater London. Brixton experienced a rapid rise in population during the 19th ce ...
, Tebbit responded to a suggestion by the
Young Conservative National chairman,
Iain Picton that rioting was the natural reaction to unemployment:
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.
As a result, Tebbit is often misquoted as having directly told the unemployed to "get on your bike", and he was popularly referred to as "Onyerbike" for some considerable time afterwards.
The former Conservative Prime Minister
Harold Macmillan
Maurice Harold Macmillan, 1st Earl of Stockton, (10 February 1894 – 29 December 1986) was a British Conservative statesman and politician who was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1957 to 1963. Caricatured as "Supermac", he ...
once remarked of Tebbit: "Heard a chap on the radio this morning talking with a cockney accent. They tell me he is one of Her Majesty's ministers". Peter Dorey of
Cardiff University
, latin_name =
, image_name = Shield of the University of Cardiff.svg
, image_size = 150px
, caption = Coat of arms of Cardiff University
, motto = cy, Gwirionedd, Undod a Chytgord
, mottoeng = Truth, Unity and Concord
, established = 1 ...
wrote that "it was Norman Tebbit... who was perhaps the public face or voice of
Essex Man
Essex man and Mondeo man are stereotypical figures which were popularised in 1990s Britain. The "Essex man" as a political figure is an example of a type of median voter and was used to help explain the electoral successes of Conservative Prime M ...
, and articulated his views and prejudices".
1983 government
The
Nuffield study of the
1983 general election found that Tebbit was the second most prominent Conservative on radio and television news broadcasts during the campaign with 81 appearances (after Thatcher's 331 appearances).
In the post-election
October 1983 reshuffle, Tebbit was moved from Employment to become
Trade and Industry Secretary, replacing
Cecil Parkinson
Cecil Edward Parkinson, Baron Parkinson, (1 September 1931 – 22 January 2016) was a British Conservative Party politician and cabinet minister. A chartered accountant by training, he entered Parliament in November 1970, and was appointed a ...
, who had resigned. Thatcher had actually wanted Tebbit to become
Home Secretary
The secretary of state for the Home Department, otherwise known as the home secretary, is a senior minister of the Crown in the Government of the United Kingdom. The home secretary leads the Home Office, and is responsible for all national ...
, but
William Whitelaw
William Stephen Ian Whitelaw, 1st Viscount Whitelaw, (28 June 1918 – 1 July 1999) was a British Conservative Party politician who served in a wide number of Cabinet positions, most notably as Home Secretary from 1979 to 1983 and as ''de fac ...
vetoed this.
Tebbit was injured in the
IRA
Ira or IRA may refer to:
*Ira (name), a Hebrew, Sanskrit, Russian or Finnish language personal name
*Ira (surname), a rare Estonian and some other language family name
*Iran, UNDP code IRA
Law
*Indian Reorganization Act of 1934, US, on status of ...
's
bombing of the Grand Hotel, Brighton during the 1984 Conservative Party conference.
His wife,
Margaret, was permanently disabled.
In 1985, Tebbit was appointed
Chairman of the Conservative Party
The chairman of the Conservative Party in the United Kingdom is responsible for party administration and overseeing the Conservative Campaign Headquarters, formerly Conservative Central Office.
When the Conservatives are in government, the off ...
and
Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster
The chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster is a ministerial office in the Government of the United Kingdom. The position is the second highest ranking minister in the Cabinet Office, immediately after the Prime Minister, and senior to the Minist ...
, as Thatcher wanted to keep him in the Cabinet. During the
Westland affair
The Westland affair in 1985–86 was an episode in which Margaret Thatcher, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, and her Secretary of State for Defence, Michael Heseltine, went public over a cabinet dispute with questions raised about whether ...
Tebbit was against the
Sikorsky Aircraft Corporation
Sikorsky Aircraft is an American aircraft manufacturer based in Stratford, Connecticut. It was established by aviation pioneer Igor Sikorsky in 1923 and was among the first companies to manufacture helicopters for civilian and military use.
Pre ...
taking over
Westland Aircraft
Westland Aircraft was a British aircraft manufacturer located in Yeovil, Somerset. Formed as a separate company by separation from Petters Limited just before the start of the Second World War, Westland had been building aircraft since 1915. D ...
. In 1986, Tebbit opposed the American bombing raid on
Libya
Libya (; ar, ليبيا, Lībiyā), officially the State of Libya ( ar, دولة ليبيا, Dawlat Lībiyā), is a country in the Maghreb region in North Africa. It is bordered by the Mediterranean Sea to the north, Egypt to Egypt–Libya bo ...
from British bases and objected to Thatcher's refusal to consult the Cabinet fully on the matter. However, he did criticise the
BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC
Here i going to introduce about the best teacher of my life b BALAJI sir. He is the precious gift that I got befor 2yrs . How has helped and thought all the concept and made my success in the 10th board exam. ...
...
for its supposedly biased reporting of the raid. During the same year, he disbanded the
Federation of Conservative Students
The Federation of Conservative Students (FCS) was the student organisation of the British Conservative Party from the late 1940s to 1986. It was created to act as a bridge between the student movement and the Conservative Party. It produced sever ...
for publishing an article, penned by Harry Phibbs, following
Nikolai Tolstoy's accusation that former Conservative Prime Minister
Harold Macmillan
Maurice Harold Macmillan, 1st Earl of Stockton, (10 February 1894 – 29 December 1986) was a British Conservative statesman and politician who was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1957 to 1963. Caricatured as "Supermac", he ...
was complicit in the forced repatriation of
Cossacks
The Cossacks , es, cosaco , et, Kasakad, cazacii , fi, Kasakat, cazacii , french: cosaques , hu, kozákok, cazacii , it, cosacchi , orv, коза́ки, pl, Kozacy , pt, cossacos , ro, cazaci , russian: казаки́ or ...
in the aftermath of the
Second World War
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
.
On 13 April 1986, Tebbit and his chief of staff
Michael Dobbs
Michael John Dobbs, Baron Dobbs (born 14 November 1948) is a British Conservative politician and author, best known for his ''House of Cards'' trilogy.
Early life and education
Michael Dobbs was born on 14 November 1948 in Cheshunt, Hertfordsh ...
visited Thatcher at
Chequers
Chequers ( ), or Chequers Court, is the country house of the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. A 16th-century manor house in origin, it is located near the village of Ellesborough, halfway between Princes Risborough and Wendover in Bucking ...
to present her with the results of polling by
Saatchi & Saatchi
Saatchi & Saatchi is a British multinational communications and advertising agency network with 114 offices in 76 countries and over 6,500 staff. It was founded in 1970 and is currently headquartered in London. The parent company of the agency gr ...
which found that with inflation down and the trade unions weakened, "the Prime Minister's combative virtues were being received as vices: her determination was perceived as stubbornness, her single-mindedness as inflexibility, and her strong will as an inability to listen". Tebbit and Dobbs told her this was becoming known as the "TBW factor": TBW standing for "That Bloody Woman". They recommended Thatcher take a lower profile in the forthcoming general election.
A few weeks later, Tebbit gave an interview to
John Mortimer for ''
The Spectator
''The Spectator'' is a weekly British magazine on politics, culture, and current affairs. It was first published in July 1828, making it the oldest surviving weekly magazine in the world.
It is owned by Frederick Barclay, who also owns ''The ...
'' where he said of Thatcher:
It's a question of her leadership when our aims aren't clearly defined. When people understand what she's doing there's a good deal of admiration for her energy and resolution and persistence, even from those people who don't agree with her. Now there's a perception that we don't know where we're going so those same qualities don't seem so attractive.[Campbell, p. 500.]
Thatcher disagreed and her biographer claims she was suspicious of Tebbit's motives. Furthermore, Thatcher commissioned the firm
Young and Rubicam
VMLY&R is an American marketing and communications company specializing in advertising, digital and social media, sales promotion, direct marketing and brand identity consulting, formed from the merger of VML, founded in 1992, and Young & Rubica ...
to carry out their own polling, which concluded that Thatcher's leadership was not the problem. Throughout the rest of 1986 and into the 1987 election, Thatcher continued to use Young and Rubicam, which eventually caused tensions with Tebbit during the election campaign.
For quite a while, Tebbit was seen as Thatcher's natural successor as Party leader. During early 1986, when Thatcher's popularity declined in the polls, commentators began to suggest that the succession of the Conservative leadership would lie between
Michael Heseltine
Michael Ray Dibdin Heseltine, Baron Heseltine, (; born 21 March 1933) is a British politician and businessman. Having begun his career as a property developer, he became one of the founders of the publishing house Haymarket. Heseltine served ...
and Tebbit.
At the 1986 Conservative Party Conference in
Bournemouth
Bournemouth () is a coastal resort town in the Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole council area of Dorset, England. At the 2011 census, the town had a population of 183,491, making it the largest town in Dorset. It is situated on the Southern ...
, Tebbit—along with Saatchi and Saatchi, Dobbs and the Conservatives' Director of Research,
Robin Harris
Robin Hughes Harris Sr. (August 30, 1953 – March 18, 1990) was an American comedian and actor, best known for his recurring comic sketch about "Bébé's Kids". He was posthumously nominated for the Independent Spirit Award for Best Supporting ...
—came up with the next party slogan—'The Next Move Forward'. For the first time, the Conservatives employed pre-conference advertising to publicise the new-style conference. Tebbit persuaded Thatcher that ministers would state their objectives that they would achieve in the next three years; Saatchi & Saatchi would use these to design posters, leaflets, and brochures to be deployed as each minister finished their speech. The aim "was that in 1986 the media should reflect the image I wanted—of a Government confident, united, clear in where it was going—and determined to get there". According to Tebbit the conference "was more successful than I had dared to hope ... the opinion polls which had us 7% behind in June and still 5% down in September now put us back into first place—a position we never relinquished from then right through the election campaign. The Prime Minister's ratings were immediately restored".
A
MORI
Mori is a Japanese and Italian surname, and also a Persian pet name for Morteza. It is also the name of two clans in Japan, and one clan in India.
Italian surname
*Barbara Mori, Uruguayan-Mexican actress
* Camilo Mori, Chilean painter
* Cesare ...
opinion poll in March 1987 saw Tebbit as second-favourite amongst voters as Thatcher's successor (Heseltine: 24% vs Tebbit: 15%); however, amongst Conservative voters, Tebbit was the front-runner with (Heseltine: 14% vs Tebbit: 21%). In October 1988, MORI asked the same question, with similar results (Heseltine: 22% vs Tebbit: 15%) and (Heseltine: 20% vs Tebbit: 26%) amongst Conservative voters. However, Thatcher apparently once told
Rupert Murdoch
Keith Rupert Murdoch ( ; born 11 March 1931) is an Australian-born American business magnate. Through his company News Corp, he is the owner of hundreds of local, national, and international publishing outlets around the world, including ...
: "I couldn't get him elected as leader of the Tory party even if I wanted – nor would the country elect him if he was".
On 6 January 1987, the journalist
Hugo Young
Hugo John Smelter Young (13 October 1938 – 22 September 2003) was a British journalist and columnist and senior political commentator at ''The Guardian''.
Early life and education
Born in Sheffield into an old recusant Roman Catholic family, h ...
published a quote attributed to Tebbit in ''
The Guardian
''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...
'' newspaper. Tebbit's chief of staff,
Michael Dobbs
Michael John Dobbs, Baron Dobbs (born 14 November 1948) is a British Conservative politician and author, best known for his ''House of Cards'' trilogy.
Early life and education
Michael Dobbs was born on 14 November 1948 in Cheshunt, Hertfordsh ...
, responded by writing a letter to the newspaper citing Young's dislike of Tebbit, adding "Perhaps this explains the invention of the quotation he
r Youngattributed to Mr Tebbit". The quote was "No-one with a conscience votes Conservative". Before this letter was published, however, the words "the invention of" had been removed. Despite publishing this letter ''The Guardian'' subsequently repeated the quote, and Young again attributed it to him in a letter to ''
The Spectator
''The Spectator'' is a weekly British magazine on politics, culture, and current affairs. It was first published in July 1828, making it the oldest surviving weekly magazine in the world.
It is owned by Frederick Barclay, who also owns ''The ...
''. Tebbit feared that if no action was taken against ''The Guardian'' the
Labour Party would use this quote against the Conservatives in the forthcoming general election. With Thatcher's consent Tebbit threatened the newspaper with legal action if they did not retract the quotation and apologise to Tebbit. The case continued until 1988 when ''The Guardian'' apologised, published a retraction and paid £14,000 in libel
damages
At common law, damages are a remedy in the form of a monetary award to be paid to a claimant as compensation for loss or injury. To warrant the award, the claimant must show that a breach of duty has caused foreseeable loss. To be recognised at ...
in an out-of-court settlement.
During the
1987 general election, Tebbit and Saatchi & Saatchi spearheaded the Conservative campaign, focusing on the economy and defence. However, when on 'Wobbly Thursday' it was rumoured a Marplan opinion poll showed a 2% Conservative lead, the 'exiles' camp of
David Young,
Tim Bell and the Young and Rubicam firm advocated a more aggressively anti-Labour message. This was when, according to Young's memoirs, Young got Tebbit by the lapels and shook him, shouting: "Norman, listen to me, we're about to lose this fucking election". In his memoirs, Tebbit defends the Conservative campaign: "We finished exactly as planned on the ground where Labour was weak and we were strong—defence, taxation, and the economy". During the election campaign, however, Tebbit and Thatcher argued. Tebbit had already informed Thatcher at the beginning of the campaign that he would leave the government after the election to care for his wife.
Thatcher said to her friend
Woodrow Wyatt
Woodrow may refer to:
People
*Woodrow (name)
Woodrow is an English given name which was originally an English surname which may originally derive from a toponym meaning "row of houses by a wood" in Old English. Other sources suggest the nam ...
on the Sunday after polling day in 1987: "He'll carry the scar of that Brighton bombing all his life. I didn't want him to go. Whenever he is away from her he can't even attend to business properly. He's always ringing up to find out if the nurses are looking after his wife all right". In her memoirs, Thatcher said she "bitterly regretted" losing a like-minded person from the Cabinet.
On 31 July 1987, Tebbit was appointed to the
Order of the Companions of Honour.
Backbenches
As Trade and Industry Secretary, Tebbit had privatised British Telecom in November 1984. He became a director of the company on 3 November 1987; this gave him an additional salary plus shares in the company.
In late 1987 and 1988, Tebbit formed a temporary alliance with
Michael Heseltine
Michael Ray Dibdin Heseltine, Baron Heseltine, (; born 21 March 1933) is a British politician and businessman. Having begun his career as a property developer, he became one of the founders of the publishing house Haymarket. Heseltine served ...
in campaigning for the abolition of the
Inner London Education Authority
The Inner London Education Authority (ILEA) was an ad hoc local education authority for the City of London and the 12 Inner London boroughs from 1965 until its abolition in 1990. The authority was reconstituted as a directly elected body corp ...
, which they succeeded in achieving through a backbench amendment.
Tebbit was also prominent in an unsuccessful Conservative backbench rebellion against a Bill to give 50,000 households (around 250,000 people) from Hong Kong
British citizenship
British nationality law prescribes the conditions under which a person is recognised as being a national of the United Kingdom. The six different classes of British nationality each have varying degrees of civil and political rights, due to the ...
.
In April 1988, Tebbit caused much controversy when, in front of an audience of South African dignitaries, he accused critics of South African apartheid of cowardice and stinking hypocrisy. He said that, although black critics attacked apartheid in South Africa, they did not speak out against violence among black tribes in South Africa. Archbishop
Desmond Tutu was visiting London at the time and called on Thatcher to repudiate the remarks; instead, she defended Tebbit.
In April 1990, he proposed the "
Cricket test
The cricket test, also known as the Tebbit test, was a controversial phrase coined in April 1990 by the British Conservative politician Norman Tebbit in reference to the perceived lack of loyalty to the England cricket team among South Asian and ...
", also known as the "Tebbit Test", when he argued that whether people from
ethnic minorities
The term 'minority group' has different usages depending on the context. According to its common usage, a minority group can simply be understood in terms of demographic sizes within a population: i.e. a group in society with the least number o ...
in Britain supported the England cricket team (rather than the team from their country of ancestry) should be considered a barometer—but not the sole indicator—of whether they are truly British: "A large proportion of Britain's Asian population fail to pass the cricket test. 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?"
Tebbit told Woodrow Wyatt in 1991 that he did not think certain immigrant communities would assimilate "because some of them insist on sticking to their own culture, like the Muslims in Bradford and so forth, and they are extremely dangerous". In August 2005, after the
7 July 2005 London bombings
The 7 July 2005 London bombings, often referred to as 7/7, were a series of four coordinated suicide attacks carried out by Islamic terrorists in London that targeted commuters travelling on the city's public transport system during the mo ...
, which were carried out by three young men of Pakistani descent and one of Jamaican descent, Tebbit claimed vindication for these views.
In a conversation with Woodrow Wyatt on 19 December 1988, Tebbit said he would not go back into politics unless Thatcher "was run over by the proverbial bus and he didn't like the look of the person he thought might get her job and destroy the work they've done". On another occasion (22 February 1990), Tebbit said to Wyatt that he would stand for the Conservative leadership if Thatcher suddenly resigned; but when
Alec Douglas-Home suggested that Thatcher would not stand at the next election because she must be tired, Tebbit disagreed: "She has got amazing stamina".
Following
Geoffrey Howe
Richard Edward Geoffrey Howe, Baron Howe of Aberavon, (20 December 1926 – 9 October 2015) was a British Conservative politician who served as Deputy Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1989 to 1990.
Howe was Margaret Thatch ...
's resignation from the government in November 1990, Thatcher asked Tebbit to return to the Cabinet as
Education Secretary, but he refused on the grounds that he was looking after his largely crippled wife. During the
1990 Conservative leadership election, Tebbit was on Thatcher's campaign team with the job of assessing her support amongst Conservative MPs. According to Thatcher's biographer
John Campbell, Tebbit was "her most visible cheerleader...who characteristically took the fight to Heseltine by holding a cheeky press conference on his Belgravia doorstep". After the first ballot but before the results became known, Tebbit wanted Thatcher to make a clear commitment to fight the second ballot if her vote fell short of the amount needed to win outright. When Tebbit saw Thatcher on 21 November he told her she was the candidate with the best chance of beating Heseltine. However, Thatcher withdrew from the contest the next day. Tebbit wanted to stand, but never did. Tebbit subsequently switched his support to
John Major
Sir John Major (born 29 March 1943) is a British former politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and Leader of the Conservative Party (UK), Leader of the Conservative Party from 1990 to 1997, and as Member of Parliament ...
.
After Major came back from Maastricht with an opt-out from the Social Chapter and the single currency, Tebbit was one of the few MPs in the debate on 18 December 1991 to criticise the new powers the Community would acquire. He claimed the government had been on the defensive against "federalist follies" and that Maastricht had seen "a series of bridgeheads into our constitution, into the powers of this House, and into the lives of individuals and businesses".
After leaving the House of Commons
Tebbit decided not to stand in the
1992 election, to devote more time to caring for his disabled wife. After the election he was granted a
life peer
In the United Kingdom, life peers are appointed members of the peerage whose titles cannot be inherited, in contrast to hereditary peers. In modern times, life peerages, always created at the rank of baron, are created under the Life Peerages ...
age and entered the
House of Lords
The House of Lords, also known as the House of Peers, is the Bicameralism, upper house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Membership is by Life peer, appointment, Hereditary peer, heredity or Lords Spiritual, official function. Like the ...
, having been created Baron Tebbit, of
Chingford
Chingford is a town in east London, England, within the London Borough of Waltham Forest. The town is approximately north-east of Charing Cross, with Waltham Abbey to the north, Woodford Green and Buckhurst Hill to the east, Walthamstow t ...
in the
London Borough of Waltham Forest, on 6 July 1992. His former seat of Chingford was aggregated in 1997 with
Woodford Green
Woodford Green is an area of Woodford in north-east London, England, within the London Borough of Redbridge. It adjoins Buckhurst Hill to the north, Woodford Bridge to the east, South Woodford to the south, and Chingford to the west. Epping F ...
in boundary changes and was held for the Conservative Party by his successor and protégé
Iain Duncan Smith
Sir George Iain Duncan Smith (born George Ian Duncan Smith; 9 April 1954), often referred to by his initials IDS, is a British politician who served as Leader of the Conservative Party and Leader of the Opposition from 2001 to 2003. He was ...
. Tebbit famously said: "If you think I'm right-wing, you should meet this guy".
Maastricht Treaty and Europe
On 11 August 1992, Woodrow Wyatt noted in his diary: "
hatcher Hatcher is a surname. Notable people with the surname include:
*Allen Hatcher (born 1944), U.S. mathematician
* Anna Granville Hatcher (1905–1978), U.S. linguist
*Edwin Starr (born Charles Edwin Hatcher, 1942–2003), U.S. soul singer
* Chris Hat ...
also seems to have formed a new alliance with Tebbit who stirs her up and talks a lot of nonsense
bout the Treaty"
At the October 1992 Conservative Party Conference in Brighton, Tebbit embarrassed
John Major
Sir John Major (born 29 March 1943) is a British former politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and Leader of the Conservative Party (UK), Leader of the Conservative Party from 1990 to 1997, and as Member of Parliament ...
's government when he made a speech attacking the Treaty. As he walked up onto the podium he was applauded by some sections of the audience, described as "young, in t-shirts, aggressively self-confident – the lager louts of our party" in the diary of the Conservative Party chairman of the time,
Norman Fowler
Peter Norman Fowler, Baron Fowler, (born 2 February 1938) is a British politician who served as a member of both Margaret Thatcher and John Major's ministries during the 1980s and 1990s. He held the office of Lord Speaker from 1 September 201 ...
. Tebbit held aloft a copy of the Treaty and asked the conference a series of questions about the Treaty: did they want to see a single currency or be citizens of a European Union? The audience shouted back "No!" after each question. Tebbit received a tumultuous standing ovation and walked into the centre of the conference hall waving amongst the cheers.
Gyles Brandreth
Gyles Daubeney Brandreth (born 8 March 1948) is an English broadcaster, writer and former politician. He has worked as a television presenter, theatre producer, journalist, author and publisher.
He was a presenter for TV-am's '' Good Morning ...
, a Conservative whip, wrote in his diary:
The talk of the town is Norman Tebbit's vulgar grand-standing barn-storming performance on Europe. He savaged Maastricht, poured scorn on monetary union, patronised the PM...and brought the conference (or a good part of it) to its feet roaring for more. He stood there, arms aloft, acknowledging the ovation, Norman the conqueror.
In his memoirs, Major accused Tebbit of hypocrisy and disloyalty because Tebbit had encouraged Conservative MPs to vote for the
Single European Act
The Single European Act (SEA) was the first major revision of the 1957 Treaty of Rome. The Act set the European Community an objective of establishing a single market by 31 December 1992, and a forerunner of the European Union's Common Forei ...
in 1986 but was now campaigning for Maastricht's rejection.
In March 2007, Tebbit became patron of the cross-party
Better Off Out
Better Off Out (BOO) is the name of a non-party campaign that called for the United Kingdom (UK)'s withdrawal from the European Union (EU). It is run by The Freedom Association, a pressure group that describes itself as non-partisan, centre-ri ...
campaign, which advocated British withdrawal from the EU. Tebbit issued a statement explaining his support:
From being a supporter of British membership of the Common Market in 1970 I have come to believe that the United Kingdom would be Better Off Out of the developing European Republic of the 21st century. We British have a thousand year history of self-government. We have been free and democratic longer than any other nation. The European Union is too diverse, too bureaucratic, too corporatist and too centralist to be a functioning democracy. We are happy to trade with our European friends and the rest of the world – but we would prefer to govern ourselves.
Involvement with the Conservative Party after 1992
Tebbit privately said of
John Major
Sir John Major (born 29 March 1943) is a British former politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and Leader of the Conservative Party (UK), Leader of the Conservative Party from 1990 to 1997, and as Member of Parliament ...
on 17 November 1994: "He has the mulishness of a weak man with stupidity". When asked what would it take for him to support Major, Tebbit responded: "Have an entirely new department, the sole job of which would be to deal with the Brussels machinery in every aspect. I agree that we don't want to leave the EU, but we've got to manipulate it and block every single advance we don't like. No, no, no must be his weapon. Veto everything he disapproves of or that we disapprove of".
In 1995, Tebbit publicly backed
John Redwood
Sir John Alan Redwood (born 15 June 1951) is a British politician who has been the Member of Parliament (MP) for Wokingham in Berkshire since 1987. A member of the Conservative Party, he was Secretary of State for Wales in the Major governm ...
's
bid for the Conservative Party leadership, praising his "brains, courage and humour".
In an interview for the ''
New Statesman
The ''New Statesman'' is a British political and cultural magazine published in London. Founded as a weekly review of politics and literature on 12 April 1913, it was at first connected with Sidney and Beatrice Webb and other leading members ...
'' magazine in June 2000, Tebbit praised Hague's right-ward shift and said that he had "never been a
ichaelPortillo fan". He also mused on not standing for the Conservative leadership after Thatcher's resignation: "When I look at what happened to the party, I tell myself that perhaps I failed in a duty. I suppose I am one of those who have it on my conscience that I allowed Mr Blair to become Prime Minister". When asked if he regretted also allowing Major to become Prime Minister, Tebbit responded:
I helped him. If I'd opposed him, he wouldn't have been on the radar screen. I'd have been opposing Michael Heseltine. I had to make the decision quickly. I didn't want to go back on my word to my wife that I'd retired from front-line politics. How would it all work? Was No 10 suitable for someone in a wheelchair? All these things go through one's mind. Then if Michael had won...he would have had to ask me to join his government, and I didn't want that. I asked myself: why am I risking all this? And I made my decision...I might have been an absolute disaster in the job. It's possible. So I am left there. You can't rewrite it. You can't rerun it.
In August 2002, Tebbit called on the then leader of the Conservatives,
Iain Duncan Smith
Sir George Iain Duncan Smith (born George Ian Duncan Smith; 9 April 1954), often referred to by his initials IDS, is a British politician who served as Leader of the Conservative Party and Leader of the Opposition from 2001 to 2003. He was ...
, to "clear out" Conservative Central Office of "squabbling children" who were involved with infighting within the Party. He named
Mark MacGregor, a former leader of the
Federation of Conservative Students
The Federation of Conservative Students (FCS) was the student organisation of the British Conservative Party from the late 1940s to 1986. It was created to act as a bridge between the student movement and the Conservative Party. It produced sever ...
which Tebbit disbanded for "loony Right libertarian politics", as one of them. Then, in October the same year, Tebbit accused a group of Conservative "modernisers" called "The Movement" of trying to get him expelled from the Party. Tebbit said that The Movement consisted of a "loose" grouping of thirteen members who had previously supported
Kenneth Clarke
Kenneth Harry Clarke, Baron Clarke of Nottingham, (born 2 July 1940), often known as Ken Clarke, is a British politician who served as Home Secretary from 1992 to 1993 and Chancellor of the Exchequer from 1993 to 1997 as well as serving as de ...
and
Michael Portillo
Michael Denzil Xavier Portillo (; born 26 May 1953) is a British journalist, broadcaster and former politician. His broadcast series include railway documentaries such as '' Great British Railway Journeys'' and '' Great Continental Railway Jour ...
for Party leader. Duncan Smith subsequently denied that Tebbit would ever be expelled and Thatcher publicly said she was "appalled" at attempts to have Tebbit expelled and telephoned him to say that she was "four square behind him".
In February 2003, Tebbit gave a speech to an audience of the
Chartered Institute of Journalists
The Chartered Institute of Journalists is a professional association for journalists and is the senior such body in the UK and the oldest in the world.
History
The ''Chartered Institute of Journalists'' was proposed during a meeting in Manches ...
at London's
Reform Club
The Reform Club is a private members' club on the south side of Pall Mall in central London, England. As with all of London's original gentlemen's clubs, it comprised an all-male membership for decades, but it was one of the first all-male cl ...
in
Pall Mall, urging journalists to reject
political correctness in favour of "open, honest and vigorous debate". He blamed "timid" politicians, including members of his own party, for allowing PC language and ideas to take hold in Britain by default.
Tebbit backed
David Davis for Party leader during the
2005 Conservative leadership election.
On 30 January 2006, he accused the Conservative Party of abandoning the party's true supporters on the Right, and opposed the new Leader
David Cameron's attempts "to reposition the party on the 'Left of the middle ground'".
In an interview with ''
The Times
''The Times'' is a British daily national newspaper based in London. It began in 1785 under the title ''The Daily Universal Register'', adopting its current name on 1 January 1788. ''The Times'' and its sister paper ''The Sunday Times'' (fou ...
'' in September 2007, Tebbit said the Conservatives lack somebody of the standing of Thatcher, and said that although it did not matter if Cameron's team were educated at Eton, "what a lot of people will suggest is that they don't know how the other half lives. David and his colleagues – the very clever young men they have in Central Office these days – are very intellectually clever, but they have no experience of the world whatsoever. He has spent much of his time in the Conservative Party and as a public relations guy. Well, it's not the experience of most people in the streets. That's the real attack and that's damaging to him, I think".
![Norman Tebbit Edinburgh University Politics Society 2008](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/10/Norman_Tebbit_Edinburgh_University_Politics_Society_2008.JPG)
In February 2008, after a magazine article written by shadow education secretary
Michael Gove, Tebbit publicly criticised what he characterised as "the poisonous tree of Blairism", which he said had been "planted" in the Conservative Party front bench.
Tebbit is the vice-president of the
Conservative Way Forward
Conservative Way Forward (CWF) is a British pressure and campaigning group, which is Thatcherite in its outlook and agenda. Margaret Thatcher was its founding President.
Conservative Way Forward was founded in 1991 to "defend and build upon th ...
group. He continued his criticism of the Conservative Party's move to a more "centre-right" position by stating that their abandonment of the traditional right vote has created a political vacuum, contributing to the rise of the
United Kingdom Independence Party
The UK Independence Party (UKIP; ) is a Eurosceptic, right-wing populist political party in the United Kingdom. The party reached its greatest level of success in the mid-2010s, when it gained two Member of Parliament (United Kingdom), member ...
(UKIP), including two MP defections, both from the Conservatives.
Tebbit retired from the House of Lords on 31 March 2022, under provision in the
House of Lords Reform Act 2014
The House of Lords Reform Act 2014 is an Act of Parliament of the United Kingdom. The Act was a private member's bill. It received Royal Assent on 14 May 2014. The Act allows members of the House of Lords to retire or resign – actions previousl ...
.
Other political views
Overseas aid
Speaking in the Lords on 26 November 1996, Lord Tebbit criticised aid to Africa, saying that most aid sent to Africa goes down a "sink of iniquity, corruption and violence" and does little to help the poor. A spokesman for the charity Oxfam said Tebbit's view was "simplistic and unhelpful". Later Lord Tebbit defended his statement that most money went "into the pockets" of politicians "to buy guns for warlords".
Homosexuality
In a letter to ''
The Daily Telegraph
''The Daily Telegraph'', known online and elsewhere as ''The Telegraph'', is a national British daily broadsheet newspaper published in London by Telegraph Media Group and distributed across the United Kingdom and internationally.
It was fo ...
'' in November 1998, Tebbit said homosexuals should be barred from being Home Secretary. A Conservative Party spokesman said Tebbit was "out of touch" and the official spokesman for
William Hague
William is a male given name of Germanic origin.Hanks, Hardcastle and Hodges, ''Oxford Dictionary of First Names'', Oxford University Press, 2nd edition, , p. 276. It became very popular in the English language after the Norman conquest of Engl ...
, then Conservative Party leader, said Hague disagreed with Tebbit. In 2013, he wrote in his ''Telegraph'' blog that his views concerning whether a homosexual person could be Home Secretary had changed.
In 2004, he opposed the British Government's
Civil Partnership Act 2004
The Civil Partnership Act 2004 (c 33) is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom, introduced by the Labour government, which grants civil partnerships in the United Kingdom the rights and responsibilities very similar to those in civil ...
. In an interview for ''
The Big Issue
''The Big Issue'' is a street newspaper founded by John Bird and Gordon Roddick in September 1991 and published in four continents. ''The Big Issue'' is one of the UK's leading social businesses and exists to offer homeless people, or individ ...
'' in May 2013, Lord Tebbit said that the coalition government's determination to pass the
Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Bill
The Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Act 2013 (c. 30) is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom which introduced same-sex marriage in England and Wales.
Background
Civil partnerships were introduced in the United Kingdom in 2004, allowi ...
had alienated grassroots Tories. He also speculated that it could mean that a lesbian queen could give birth to a future monarch by artificial insemination, and that the legislation might allow him to marry his own son to escape
inheritance tax.
In 2018, Tebbit said that he would not attend services at
St Edmundsbury Cathedral conducted by new dean
Joe Hawes
Joseph Patricius Hawes (born 1965) is a British Anglican priest. Since 2018, he has been the Dean of St Edmundsbury. From 2003 to 2018, he was Vicar of All Saints Church, Fulham in the Diocese of London. His early parish ministry was spent in ...
, because of Hawes' civil partnership with another clergyman. Tebbit described Hawes as a "sodomite". Hawes said that he felt "absolutely no ill will" towards Tebbit for his comments and stated: "I have always admired the way in which Lord Tebbit has cared for his wife with such devotion following the Brighton bomb."
Northern Ireland
In October 1999, he spoke out against the plans to abolish the
Royal Ulster Constabulary
The Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) was the police force in Northern Ireland from 1922 to 2001. It was founded on 1 June 1922 as a successor to the Royal Irish Constabulary (RIC)Richard Doherty, ''The Thin Green Line – The History of the Royal ...
. Tebbit said he was against throwing the Constabulary's name and badge "into the modernisation trash can" and that the RUC had been "the thin green line standing between bloody anarchy and the rule of law". Tebbit also mocked Blair's pledge at the Labour conference to "set people free": "He has set them free. More than 250 terrorists, bombers and extortionists. Kneecappers, kidnappers, arsonists and killers have been set free. But their victims remain imprisoned. Some are imprisoned within broken bodies. Some imprisoned in grief for their loved ones. Some imprisoned by death in their graves".
Other parties
In an article for ''The Spectator'' in May 2001 Tebbit said that retired British security service agents from the
Foreign Office
Foreign may refer to:
Government
* Foreign policy, how a country interacts with other countries
* Ministry of Foreign Affairs, in many countries
** Foreign Office, a department of the UK government
** Foreign office and foreign minister
* Unit ...
had infiltrated
James Goldsmith
Sir James Michael Goldsmith (26 February 1933 – 18 July 1997) was a French-British financier, tycoon''Billionaire: The Life and Times of Sir James Goldsmith'' by Ivan Fallon and politician who was a member of the Goldsmith family.
His cont ...
's
Referendum Party
The Referendum Party was a Eurosceptic, single-issue political party that was active in the United Kingdom from 1994 to 1997. The party's sole objective was for a referendum to be held on the nature of the UK's membership of the European Union ...
in the 1990s and then later infiltrated UKIP. Tebbit called for an independent enquiry into the matter.
Miners' strike
In 2009, Tebbit said he had regrets about the
1984–1985 miners' strike:
Those mining communities had good working class values and a sense of family values. The men did real men's heavy work going down the pit. There were also some very close-knit communities which were able to deal with the few troublesome kids. If they had any problems they would take the kid round the back and give them a good clip round the ear and that would be the end of that. Many of these communities were completely devastated, with people out of work turning to drugs and no real man's work because all the jobs had gone. There is no doubt that this led to a breakdown in these communities with families breaking up and youths going out of control. The scale of the closures went too far. The damage done to those communities was enormous as a result of the strike.
Immigration
In June 2014, in response to an
alleged Islamist plot to infiltrate schools in Birmingham, Tebbit wrote in ''
The Daily Telegraph
''The Daily Telegraph'', known online and elsewhere as ''The Telegraph'', is a national British daily broadsheet newspaper published in London by Telegraph Media Group and distributed across the United Kingdom and internationally.
It was fo ...
'', "No one should have been surprised at what was going on in schools in Birmingham. It is precisely what I was talking about over 20 years ago and
Enoch Powell
John Enoch Powell, (16 June 1912 – 8 February 1998) was a British politician, classical scholar, author, linguist, soldier, philologist, and poet. He served as a Conservative Member of Parliament (1950–1974) and was Minister of Health (1 ...
was warning against long before that. We have imported far too many immigrants who have come here not to live in our society, but to replicate here the society of their homelands."
"Foreigners" speech
In 2017, Lord Tebbit criticised a Lords amendment to
the Brexit bill which would guarantee the rights of EU citizens to live and work within the UK after
Brexit
Brexit (; a portmanteau of "British exit") was the withdrawal of the United Kingdom (UK) from the European Union (EU) at 23:00 GMT on 31 January 2020 (00:00 1 February 2020 CET).The UK also left the European Atomic Energy Community (EAEC or ...
. He also criticised the Lords for "thinking of nothing but the rights of foreigners" and "
ookingafter the foreigners and not the British", as
Theresa May
Theresa Mary May, Lady May (; née Brasier; born 1 October 1956) is a British politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and Leader of the Conservative Party from 2016 to 2019. She previously served in David Cameron's cab ...
had hoped to leave this amendment out of the bill to secure the rights of British citizens living in EU countries post-Brexit. His comments produced "loud gasps" from the majority of peers (but gained audible support by a number on the Conservative benches), adding that "Of course we don't have the power to look after our citizens overseas, not in these days when we don't have many gunboats".
Personal life
Tebbit currently lives in Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk. He is an agnostic. He remarked tongue-in-cheek in a March 2011 interview, when asked whether he thinks God exists, "I'm not sure. He ought to. Things would work better." He has two sons and a daughter.
He has been described as a 'keen amateur chef', and has published a book on cooking game.
In December 2013, Tebbit suffered from a heart scare, praising the NHS for their quick and decisive action. In a May 2014 interview, he talked about discovering he had been suffering with a form of
cardiac arrhythmia
Arrhythmias, also known as cardiac arrhythmias, heart arrhythmias, or dysrhythmias, are irregularities in the heartbeat, including when it is too fast or too slow. A resting heart rate that is too fast – above 100 beats per minute in adults ...
for more than 40 years: "The suspicion I had a heart problem caused me to puzzle over earlier incidents in my life," he said, reflecting on his RAF jet fighter crash in 1954. "I suspect that, that morning, stressed from the previous day and having had little sleep, I lost consciousness on that take-off run."
Baroness Tebbit died at home in
Bury St Edmunds
Bury St Edmunds (), commonly referred to locally as Bury, is a historic market town, market, cathedral town and civil parish in Suffolk, England.OS Explorer map 211: Bury St.Edmunds and Stowmarket Scale: 1:25 000. Publisher:Ordnance Survey – ...
,
Suffolk
Suffolk () is a ceremonial county of England in East Anglia. It borders Norfolk to the north, Cambridgeshire to the west and Essex to the south; the North Sea lies to the east. The county town is Ipswich; other important towns include Lowes ...
on 19 December 2020 at the age of 86 after having suffered from depression and
dementia with Lewy bodies
Dementia with Lewy bodies (DLB) is a type of dementia characterized by changes in sleep, behavior, cognition, movement, and regulation of automatic bodily functions. Memory loss is not always an early symptom. The disease worsens over time an ...
.
In the media
In the late 1980s, Tebbit was frequently the target for stand-up comedian
Ben Elton
Benjamin Charles Elton (born 3 May 1959) is an English comedian, actor, author, playwright, lyricist and director. He was a part of London's alternative comedy movement of the 1980s and became a writer on the sitcoms '' The Young Ones'' and ''Bla ...
, who typically referred to him as "Normo Tebbs".
Tebbit was interviewed about the rise of
Thatcherism
Thatcherism is a form of British conservative ideology named after Conservative Party leader Margaret Thatcher that relates to not just her political platform and particular policies but also her personal character and general style of manag ...
for the 2006
BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC
Here i going to introduce about the best teacher of my life b BALAJI sir. He is the precious gift that I got befor 2yrs . How has helped and thought all the concept and made my success in the 10th board exam. ...
...
TV documentary series ''