Who was Norman Tebbit? Cricket test, "get on your bike", and views on homosexuals - Conservative politician remembered

Lord Norman Tebbit, who in his time was Minister of State for Industry, and Employment, as well as being the chairman of the Conservative Party in the mid 1980s, has died “peacefully at home”, his son William said.

Tebbit was elected as MP for Epping in 1970 and then for Chingford in February 1974. He became one of Margaret Thatcher’s staunchest allies, and was seriously injured in the 1984 Brighton hotel bombing carried out by the IRA, which permanently disabled his wife Margaret.

Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch said Norman Tebbit “was an icon in British politics and his death will cause sadness across the political spectrum”.

Former Chancellor of the Exchequer chairman Nadhim Zahawi said: “Rest in eternal peace great man. Norman Tebbit was a giant of Conservative politics & Conservative ideals. A man who looked after his beloved wife beautifully after the horrific terror attack by the IRA. A man who nurtured and befriended young conservatives like me. He was great company on a weekend in the country. RIP.”

Tebbit was not afraid of making headlines - and was a regular target to be lampooned on satirical show Spitting Image - and was controversial throughout his career for his beliefs. Among his strongly put views were:

Norman Tebbit’s “cricket test”

In 1990, he put forward the “cricket test” saying that whether people from ethnic minorities in Britain supported the England cricket team (rather than the team from their family’s original home) should be considered a mark of whether they were truly British. He said many Asian people in England would “fail”, adding: “It's an interesting test. Are you still harking back to where you came from or where you are?"[55]

Views on aid

In 1996 Tebbit said most aid sent to Africa goes down a "sink of iniquity, corruption and violence", to politicians and not to the deserving.

Homosexuals

Writing to the Daily Telegraph in 1998, Tebbit said that homosexuals should be barred from being Home Secretary, and he opposed the 2004 Civil Partnership Act. He also bizarrely speculated that a lesbian queen could give birth to a future monarch by artificial insemination.

Immigrants

In a piece in the Telegraph about an Islamic plan to infiltrate schools in Birmingham, Tebbit wrote: "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 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."

“Get on your bike”

Tebbit didn’t actual say that to the unemployed - but he certainly implied it. The exact quote, given in 1981 after riots in Brixton, was: “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.”