Norman Tebbit: Margaret Thatcher loyalist and IRA bombing survivor forever associated with 'on yer bike' catchphrase

Lord Tebbit of Chingford was one of Margaret Thatcher's staunchest "true blue" political allies and the survivor of an IRA bombing in 1984.

Tributes have been paid to the former Tory minister - following his death at the age of 94 - as a leading political voice throughout the turbulent 1980s, entering the cabinet as employment secretary and leaving six years later as Conservative Party chairman.

He would forever be associated with the "on yer bike" catchphrase, as well as controversially having claimed a large proportion of Britain's Asian population failed to pass the "cricket test".

Norman Beresford Tebbit was born in Ponders End, a working-class suburb of north London, on 29 March 1931 to Leonard and Edith Tebbit.

In 1942, he joined Edmonton County Grammar School before leaving at the age of 16 to work for the Financial Times, a job that would foment the anti-trade union politics he became known for when he joined parliament decades later, aged 39.

Before entering Westminster, Lord Tebbit trained as a pilot with the RAF - at one point narrowly escaping from the burning cockpit of a jet. He had a hunch, however, that it was a career in frontline politics that would define his life.

As a working-class boy from north London - and not a "knight from the shires" he thought composed so much of the Conservative Party - he rose up the ranks to serve in Margaret Thatcher's cabinet.

In one of the many interviews he gave about his life over the years, Lord Tebbit spoke with pride about his ability to retain a "line of communication" with "those people" who came from humble backgrounds such as his.

"I'm still proud of the fact that when I walk down the road there's often a shout from the bus or the lorry or the building site: ''ere, Norm, 'ow ya doin', mate?' he told the Independent in 1993, a year after he stood down as the MP for Chingford. "And I'm proud of that because it means that I've got a line of communication to those people."

'Chingford skinhead'

It was perhaps Lord Tebbit's ability to communicate in the same language as "those people" that earned him the reputation of a plain-speaking populist on the Conservative right, or the "Chingford skinhead".

His most prized position in the cabinet was, however, that of Mrs Thatcher's right-hand man and loyal attack dog, which the satirists at Spitting Image conveyed by kitting out Lord Tebbit in black leather and bovver boots used to discipline any cabinet minister who did not toe the party line.

His hard-line stance became useful to Mrs Thatcher when she was determined to take on the unions in the 1980s. It was a mission that saw Jim Prior ousted as employment secretary - along with the other cabinet "wets" (Conservative MPs seen as opposed to Mrs Thatcher's policies for being too hardline/right-wing) - and Lord Tebbit promoted in his place.

Years earlier, he had brandished his anti-union credentials in a debate with then employment secretary Michael Foot that culminated in him being labelled a "semi-house-trained polecat".

Lord Tebbit said the insult "demeaned" his opponent but "gave my political career a tremendous lift". When he was made a peer in 1992, he proudly chose a polecat as one of the symbols on his coat of arms.

'On yer bike'

In the 1980s, Lord Tebbit was responsible for legislation that weakened the powers of the trade unions and the closed shop, making him the political embodiment of the Thatcherite ideology that was in full swing.

His tough approach was put to the test when riots erupted in Brixton, south London, against the backdrop of high rates of unemployment and mistrust between the Black community and the police.

In response to Iain Picton, the Young Conservatives' national chairman, suggesting that rioting was a natural reaction to unemployment, Lord Tebbit famously told the Conservative Party conference: "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."

Lord Tebbit would forever be associated with the "on yer bike" catchphrase by enthusiasts and critics alike.

Tragedy strikes

The evident ideological harmony between Mrs Thatcher and Lord Tebbit made him her natural successor in the eyes of many, but in 1984, tragedy struck in his personal life that all but capped any leadership ambitions he harboured of his own.

Lord Tebbit was accompanying the prime minister and the rest of the Conservative cabinet to the Grand Hotel in Brighton for the party's annual conference when it was hit by an IRA bomb, killing five people and injuring 34.

He had been asleep in his hotel room with his wife, Margaret, when the ceiling collapsed. They both fell four floors and spent hours buried in the rubble.

Lord Tebbit would spend three months in hospital and after would walk with a slight limp. His wife was never able to walk again and needed constant care.

He later spoke of how he felt unable to forgive the man responsible, Patrick Magee, or indeed the rest of the IRA and the late Martin McGuinness for their actions.

Following Mr McGuinness's death in 2017, Lord Tebbit said, in characteristically blunt language: "He claimed to be a Roman Catholic. I hope that his beliefs turn out to be true and he'll be parked in a particularly hot and unpleasant corner of hell for the rest of eternity."

Shortly after the Brighton bomb, Lord Tebbit was appointed Conservative Party chair, successfully shepherding in another landslide victory in 1987.

It proved to be his last hurrah in the Commons. Later that year, he stepped down from the cabinet to care for his wife - and his relationship with Mrs Thatcher having become uneasy due to his ever-rising profile.

In 1992, two years after Mrs Thatcher was ousted by the pro-Europeans in her party, Lord Tebbit stood down as the MP for Chingford and went to the House of Lords.

Squabbles over Europe

Lord Tebbit may have left frontline politics, but he would prove to be a perennial thorn in the side of Sir John Major on the question of Europe - showing him up at the Conservative Party conference in 1992 with a barnstorming speech opposing the Maastricht Treaty, which established the EU.

His anti-EU views would continue long into the reign of David Cameron, whom he considered a "newcomer" to the traditional torch-bearing Tory party.

Lord Tebbit continued to campaign for the UK to leave the EU as patron of the cross-party Better Off Out campaign, and urged people to vote UKIP in the European elections of 2009.

It was not just issues involving Europe where Lord Tebbit's views diverged from the modern Conservative Party. In 2000, Steve Norris, then Conservative Party vice chairman, branded him a "racist and a homophobe".

Lord Tebbit caused controversy when he claimed a large proportion of Britain's Asian population failed to pass the "cricket test" by continuing to support overseas teams, and for suggesting the Gay Marriage Bill of 2013 could lead to a lesbian Queen giving birth to a future monarch by artificial insemination.

In 2022, he retired from the House of Lords, two years after his wife died from a "particularly foul" form of dementia.

He continued to remain as engaged in politics as ever, writing prolifically in the columns of newspapers where he would reflect on his extraordinary 50-year stretch in politics.

In one memorable interview with The Independent, he said a regret that both he and Mrs Thatcher had was that they both "neglected to clone ourselves".

A more serious - and less tongue-in-cheek - regret was expressed when Mrs Thatcher died in 2013 and tributes were made in her honour in parliament.

Lord Tebbit rose to his feet and said: "My regrets? I think I do regret that because of the commitments I had made to my own wife that I did not feel able either to continue in government after 1987 or to return to government when she later asked me to do and I left her, I fear, at the mercy of her friends. That I do regret."

Lord Tebbit is survived by his three children, John, Alison and William.

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