UK: Former Tory cabinet minister, Norman Tebbit, dies at 94

Norman Tebbit, a former Conservative Party cabinet minister under Margaret Thatcher’s leadership, has passed away at the age of 94.

Tebbit held several key roles during the 1980s, including chairman of the Conservative Party and head of the trade, industry, and employment departments. A close ally of Thatcher, he supported her policies and helped introduce legislation aimed at reducing trade union influence, including laws that held unions liable for illegal actions.

In 1984, Lord Tebbit and his wife, Margaret, were caught in the IRA bombing of the Grand Hotel in Brighton during the Conservative Party’s annual conference, where he sustained multiple injuries, including a broken shoulder blade, fractured vertebrae, and a cracked collarbone.

The incident left his wife was left permanently disabled.

In a statement on Tuesday, his son William said Tebbit died peacefully at home.

“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,” the statement reads.

Conservative leader, Kemi Badenoch has paid tribute, saying Lord Tebbit “was an icon in British politics and his death will cause sadness across the political spectrum.”

Lord Michael Dobbs, author of House of Cards and Tebbit’s former chief of staff, told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme that Tebbit was “a man of great humour, of great political insight and a man of tremendous courage too.”

Continuing, Dobbs said his former principal was not courageous in pursuing policies, but also in the way he dealt with the aftermath of the Brighton bombing.

“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. Politics misses tremendously people of that character who believe so deeply in what they are pursuing that they risk everything for it,” he added.

Lord Charles Moore, biographer of Margaret Thatcher, said Tebbit 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.”

Tebbit served as a Member of Parliament from 1970 to 1992, first for Epping, then Chingford from 1974 onwards.

At the 1981 Conservative Party conference, he drew attention with a remark about unemployment and unrest, saying: “In the 1930s my father had not rioted but had ‘got on his bike and looked for work, and he kept looking till he found it’.”

He stirred further controversy in 1990 with what became known as the ‘cricket test’, asking whether immigrants truly identified with Britain.

“A large proportion of Britain’s Asian population fail to pass the cricket test,” BBC quoted late Tebbit.

“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?”

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