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 Tebbit has died at the age of 94. Pic: PA
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.
Norman Tebbit (back left) with Margaret Thatcher at the launch of the 1983 Tory manifesto. Pic: PA
“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.
Norman Tebbit was one of Margaret Thatcher’s staunchest political allies. Pic: PA
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.
Norman Tebbit was seriously injured in the IRA attack on Brighton’s Grand Hotel. Pic: PA
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.
Norman Tebbit (back left) with Margaret Thatcher at the launch of the 1983 Tory manifesto. Pic: PA
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.
Lord Tebbit with his wife Margaret. Pic: PA
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.
UK
Second-largest population increase in England and Wales in over 75 years – mainly fuelled by migration
The population of England and Wales has grown by more than 700,000 in the year to June 2024 – the second-largest increase in over 75 years.
The change was largely fuelled by international migration, with natural change – the difference between births and deaths – accounting for only a small proportion.
According to the Office for National Statistics, there were an estimated 61.8 million people in England and Wales in mid-2024, up from 61.1 million the year before.
It is the second-largest numerical jump since at least 1949, when comparable data began.
And it is behind only the rise of 821,210 that took place in the preceding 12 months from mid-2022 to mid-2023.
Nigel Henretty of the ONS said the population of the two countries has increased each year since mid-1982, but said the rate of population increases has been higher in recent years.
“Net international migration continues to be the main driver of this growth, continuing the long-term trend seen since the turn of the century,” he said.
Net international migration – the difference between people moving to the country and leaving – accounted for 690,147 of the estimated population increase of 706,881 people, or 98% of the total.
There were slightly more births than deaths in the most recent year, which added 29,982 to the population.
There was also a net decrease in internal migration – the number of people moving from England and Wales to elsewhere in the UK.
In Altrincham near Manchester, two opposing groups have gathered to throw insults at each other across the A56.
“Fascists! Racists!” shouts one lot.
On the opposing verge, they shout back: “Shame on you!”
Then both sides chant: “Whose streets? Our streets!”
Cars flash between them, some adding hoots to the noise.
It’s 5pm on Sunday and much of the nation is united watching the Lionesses in the Euro finals.
Yet here is a dual carriageway of division formed in front of what has become a beacon for unrest – a hotel housing asylum seekers.
Anti-migration protesters opposite the hotel in Altrincham
Counter-protesters show their support for the refugees
Sky News has been testing the mood in Altrincham since locals were first informed last November that the Cresta Court Hotel was being repurposed from accommodating short business stays and local events into lodgings for hundreds of male asylum seekers who crossed the Channel on small boats.
Over the course of eight months there have been angry town meetings, regular low-level protests and last Sunday around 80 people from each side turned up outside the hotel with banners, flags and loudspeakers.
“We stopped the Germans, why can’t we stop dinghies,” says local man Dave Haydock under a St George’s cross cap.
“We’re paying for them to be in there and there’s British people out on the streets,” added local businessman Steve, who is waving a Union Flag. “They’re not fleeing a war to come to Britain – they’re coming from France – they are coming because of all the benefits – and everyone in the UK now knows that.”
Dave Haydock speak to Sky’s Jason Farrell
The demonstrators on either side of the A56
Cost, benefits and risk to women are recurring themes.
“These people coming over without any documentation,” says local Clare Jones as she points in the direction of two schools. “I’m not a racist. I’m just a concerned mum. I don’t feel safe in my own community.”
A man behind a mask who didn’t want to appear on camera says the media “sneers” at these protests because the media is middle class and “this is a working-class movement”.
Altrincham is one of Manchester’s most affluent towns, but there are much poorer areas close by.
The social demographic at the protests was mixed.
On either side of the A56 I met business owners, nurses, teachers and pensioners.
Both groups were also largely made up of locals.
Read more:
Protest outside hotel housing asylum seekers was peaceful. Suddenly, it all changed
Home Office threatens asylum seekers with homelessness
A handful of social media “professional” protesters also turned up, pointing cameras at anything they could film – making selfie videos for their TikTok and YouTube followers.
A small line of police officers was in place to keep the peace.
The counter-protesters forming a line to protect the hotel. Described as “lefties” by the anti-migrant demonstrators, the counter-protesters feel that the people opposite are either “far right, fascists” or “being manipulated by the far right”.
Altrincham resident Alison O’Connell said “this is very frightening” as she pointed at the anti-migrant demonstrators. “We are just here to show support for the refugees in the hotel,” she added.
Alison O’Connell
Counter-protester Steph Phoenix said: “Knowing personally people in the hotels, I know they are not coming for our money. These people are desperate. They don’t come over for a laugh, they are coming over because they are escaping something terrible in their own country.”
Nahella Ashraf, co-chair of Greater Manchester Stand Up To Racism, said: “There needs to be an honest conversation about what the problems are in society. Refugees are not to blame. People are worried about the cost of living crisis, but it’s not caused by refugees. By housing people in these hotels, we’ve not taken accommodation away from anyone in Britain.”
Steph Phoenix, right, says the asylum seekers are ‘desperate’
Migrants disappeared into their rooms during the protest, some peering out of their bedroom windows.
Their voices are rarely heard in this debate.
The next day, hotel security advised them not to talk to us.
Those we did speak to all had stories of fleeing instability and threat. Some had just arrived, others had been here months.
Many were anxious about the protests, but equally not put off from their decision to come.
One said he had recently told a local who had been abusive: “I struggled to get here. It was just luck you were born here.”
The fears of increased crime expressed by residents in November don’t appear to have transpired. But Conservative councillor Nathan Evans, who called the first town meeting, says groups of men in the park, men praying in the public library and warning letters from schools to parents about groups of men near the school gates have all caused “an unease across the town”. He says he has warned the police of a “simmering issue”.
Protesters on either side don’t agree on much but both see the hotel as a symbol of broken promises from successive governments – a failure to manage migration in a way that doesn’t inflame communities. What remains is anger.
Managing and containing that anger is a growing challenge.
One year on, how’s Keir Starmer’s government going? We’ve put together an end-of-term report with the help of pollster YouGov.
First, here are the government’s approval ratings – drifting downwards.
It didn’t start particularly high. There has never been a honeymoon.
But here is the big change. Last year’s Labour voters now disapprove of their own government. That wasn’t true at the start – but is now.
And remember, it’s easier to keep your existing voter coalition together than to get new ones from elsewhere.
So we have looked at where voters who backed Labour last year have gone now.
YouGov’s last mega poll shows half of Labour voters last year – 51% – say they would vote for them again if an election was held tomorrow.
Around one in five (19%) say they don’t know who they’d vote for – or wouldn’t vote.
But Labour are also leaking votes to the Lib Dems, Greens and Reform.
These are the main reasons why.
A sense that Labour haven’t delivered on their promises is top – just above the cost of living. Some 22% say they’ve been too right-wing, with a similar number saying Labour have “made no difference”. Immigration and public services are also up there.
Now, YouGov asked people whether they think the cabinet is doing a good or a bad job, and combined the two figures together to get a net score.
John Healey and Bridget Phillipson are on top, but the big beats of Angela Rayner, Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves bottom.
But it’s not over for Labour.
Here’s one scenario – 2024 Labour voters say they would much prefer a Labour-led government over a Conservative one.
But what about a Reform UK-led government? Well, Labour polls even better against them – just 11% of people who voted Labour in 2024 want to see them enter Number 10.
Signs of hope for Keir Starmer. But as Labour MPs head off for their summer holidays, few of their voters would give this government an A*.
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