Norman Tebbit, who served as a cabinet minister in Margaret Thatcher’s government, has died aged 94.
Throughout the 1980s he worked as the chairman of the Conservative Party and led departments including trade and industry and employment.
A loyal ally of Thatcher, Lord Tebbit backed her agenda, bringing in laws designed to curb union power – including making them liable for damages if they did illegal acts.
Our Conservative family mourns the loss of Lord Tebbit today and I send my sincerest condolences to his loved ones.
Norman Tebbit was an icon in British politics and his death will cause sadness across the political spectrum. He was one of the leading exponents of the philosophy…
In 1984, he and his wife were injured in the IRA bombing of the Grand Hotel in Brighton during the Tory Party’s annual conference.
In the blast – which killed five people – Lord Tebbit suffered a broken shoulder blade, fractured vertebrae and a cracked collarbone, while Margaret Tebbit, was left permanently disabled.
In a statement released on Tuesday, Lord Tebbit’s son William said: “At 11.15pm on 7 July 2025 Lord Tebbit died peacefully at home aged 94.
“His family ask that their privacy is respected at this time and a further statement regarding funeral arrangements will be made in due course.”
Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch said Lord Tebbit “was an icon in British politics and his death will cause sadness across the political spectrum”.
“He was one of the leading exponents of the philosophy we now know as Thatcherism and his unstinting service in the pursuit of improving our country should be held up as an inspiration to all Conservatives,” she said.
“But to many of us it was the stoicism and courage he showed in the face of terrorism which inspired us as he rebuilt his political career after suffering terrible injuries in the Brighton bomb.
“He never buckled under pressure and he never compromised.”
Lord Michael Dobbs, the author of House of Cards who worked as Lord Tebbit’s chief of staff, told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme he was “a man of great humour, of great political insight and a man of tremendous courage too.”
“Not only political courage because he was willing to pursue policies he thought were fundamentally right even though at the time they might have been unpopular but he was also a man of great personal courage – the way he dealt with the aftermath of the Brighton bombing,” he said.
“Politics misses tremendously people of that character who believe so deeply in what they are pursuing that they risk everything for it.”
Margaret Thatcher’s biographer Lord Charles Moore said he was the “first important personal example of Thatcherism in action because he was the self-made man from the working class and he was unapologetic about that”.
Former Conservative leader Sir Iain Duncan Smith, who took over Lord Tebbit’s Chingford seat after he stood down in 1992, said he was “critical to Margaret’s Thatcher’s success”, adding: “Sometimes she didn’t own that as much as she should have.”
Born in 1931 in the north London suburb of Ponders End, he left school at 16 and joined the Financial Times.
He learnt to fly planes during his National Service with the RAF and later worked for the British Overseas Airways Corporation.
In the mid 1960s, he became increasingly involved in politics and in 1970 won the seat of Epping for the Conservatives.
The constituency was later redrawn and renamed Chingford, which he represented until 1992, when he left the Commons for the House of Lords.
As a politician he gained a reputation for his forthright approach.
