Norman Tebbit, who has died at the age of 94, was at the heart of Margaret Thatcher’s political revolution.
He was a man whose philosophy of self-reliance formed the core of his political beliefs.
An able and conscientious politician, his plain speaking on immigration and Europe endeared him to the Tory faithful, and he was once spoken of as a possible party leader.
He coined the oft use phrase ‘On yer bike’ and was more working class than Sir Keir Starmer, the Labour Prime Minister.
And while Lord Tebbit’s uncompromising views often enraged his political opponents, he was unmoved by the less-than-flattering names they bestowed upon him.
Norman Beresford Tebbit was born on 29 March 1931 in the working-class suburb of Ponders End in north London.
His father, a manager in a jewellery and pawnbroker’s business, had progressed sufficiently in life to be buying his own house.
However, prosperity was not to last.
The manager’s job disappeared in the economic depression, and the family moved to what became a series of short-term lets in Edmonton.
Tebbit’s father found employment as a painter, although not before he had travelled the streets looking for work on a bicycle that was later became to become famous.
By the time the young Norman arrived at Edmonton County Grammar School, he had already developed his interest in Conservative politics.
“I felt you should be able to make your own fortune,” he said. “You should be master of your own fate.”
Leaving school at 16, he joined the Financial Times where, much to his annoyance, the operation of the closed shop forced him to join the print union, Natsopa.
After two years, he went to do his National Service with the RAF where he gained a commission as a Pilot Officer.
However, he decided that his political ambitions were not compatible with a service career so he left to sell advertising with a company run by a family friend.
He narrowly escaped death when his Meteor jet failed to take off and ploughed off the end of a runway in Cambridgeshire.
Trapped in the burning plane, Tebbit managed to force open the cockpit canopy. His aircraft was completely destroyed.
Sixty years later, doctors told him that he’d lived with a cardiac arrhythmia for most of his life. It was possible that he had slipped unconscious on the runway.
In 1953, he joined the British Overseas Airways Corporation (BOAC) as a pilot and, three years later, married a nurse called Margaret Daines.
For the next 17 years, he juggled his flying with a career as an activist for the British Airline Pilots’ Association.
The man who would later be instrumental in tackling Britain’s trade unions became a scourge of the airline’s management.The election of a Labour government in 1964 spurred him towards politics.
He was eventually selected as the Conservative candidate for Epping, a seat once held by Sir Winston Churchill.
He won his chance after giving a characteristically robust Tebbit speech.
It advocated selling off state-owned industries, trade union reform, immigration control and an attack on the so-called permissive society.
The seat then contained the Labour stronghold of Harlow, but an energetic campaign, coupled with the overconfidence of the sitting Labour MP, saw Tebbit victorious in 1970.
Norman Tebbit rapidly became disillusioned with Sir Edward Heath’s style of leadership
He quickly became disillusioned with Ted Heath’s leadership.
Tebbit felt that the radical platform on which the Conservatives had won the election was being ignored, in favour of a more consensus style of politics.
But in 1972, he accepted a job as parliamentary private secretary to the minister of state for employment, the first rung on the ladder to ministerial office.
His new post was not to last long.
Angered by Heath’s adoption of a prices and incomes policy – a clear breach of a manifesto promise – and his failure to curb union influence, Tebbit resigned from the government.
Three months later, the Conservatives were out of office.