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She lost Cecil... so how did that fat fornicating fool Prescott survive? In true Chingford Polecat style, a delicious monstering of political lightweights who brought Thatcher down

Norman Tebbit will go to his grave wondering if he could have saved Margaret Thatcher from being deposed as Prime Minister if he had not left her side.
He stepped down from the Cabinet in 1987 to protect another Margaret, his wife, paralysed in the Brighton bombing three years earlier that Tebbit only narrowly survived himself.
‘I might have been able to save her, or least let her go in her own time, instead of being forced out by those I call the “Brussels irregulars”,’ he reflects with a bloodless smile as we sit in the study of the Tebbits’ elegant home in Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk. 
Norman Tebbit will go to his grave wondering if Margaret Thatcher could have been saved from being deposed as Prime Minister if he had not stepped down in 1987
Norman Tebbit will go to his grave wondering if Margaret Thatcher could have been saved from being deposed as Prime Minister if he had not stepped down in 1987
Upstairs, Margaret Tebbit is with one of a team of carers that help her husband look after her. She was also a close friend of Lady Thatcher, but is too frail to attend Wednesday’s funeral.
Tebbit has spent the morning trying, and failing so far, to recruit extra nurses to allow him to get to St Paul’s.
He is determined to be there. Nearly a quarter of a century after Maggie was toppled by pro-EU Cabinet enemies Geoffrey Howe and Michael Heseltine – the ‘Brussels irregulars’ – his contempt for them burns just as bright. Thatcher may be gone, but her guard dog Tebbit is still alive and snarling.
 

More...

  • The last portrait of a Lady - in treasured gardens where her ashes will be scattered alongside those of her beloved husband, Denis
  • Which of these PMs sacked the most miners? (Clue: It wasn't Lady Thatcher)... The amazing facts that make a mockery of the rabble who want to wreck her funeral
  • London's ring of steel: Preparations in full swing ahead of Baroness Thatcher's funeral as police get ready to launch biggest security operation since the Olympics
And at 82, the Chingford Polecat still has a few scores to settle.
He boasts of having ‘scuppered’ Heseltine’s chances of taking Thatcher’s place in Number 10 – and claims it was a ‘patriotic act’.
And he derides John Major, who did succeed her, as ‘like a cushion – with the imprint of the last person who sat on him’.
Lord Norman Tebbit (pictured in 2006), the former chairman of the Conservative Party, is determined to be at Baroness Thatcher's funeral on Wednesday
Lord Norman Tebbit (pictured in 2006), the former chairman of the Conservative Party, is determined to be at Baroness Thatcher's funeral on Wednesday
In one of his most outspoken interviews, he also:
  •  Says David Cameron will not win the next Election – and forecasts the ‘next Maggie’ could be a female from a Muslim background.
  •  Accuses ‘bungling’ BBC boss and ex-Tory Cabinet Minister Chris Patten of contributing to her downfall.
  •  Says a Tory MP aide castigated for not seeing the leadership threat to her had a drink problem.
  •   Reveals how he told a fellow Conservative Cabinet Minister, who tried to ‘screw’ him: ‘It’s time we buried the hatchet, normally I do that in the other guy’s head.’
And he lambasts Thatcher’s Labour foes, calling John Prescott a ‘flabby, fat, fornicating fool’ and Neil Kinnock ‘narrow minded’ for snubbing her funeral.
The moment we stepped into his study, Tebbit proudly ran his finger along a handwritten dedication to him in her biography. She quoted Kipling on brotherly loyalty, from his ‘Thousandth Man’ poem: ‘But the thousandth man will stand your friend with the whole round world agin you.’
For years, Tebbit had been that ‘man in a thousand’, but when Howe and Heseltine struck against her in 1990, Thatcher’s brothers in arms were all gone – thanks to the IRA.
Although Thatcher had a miraculous escape in the Grand Hotel bomb, Tebbit was never the same.
And hard as nails Thatcher aide Ian Gow and fellow Tory MP, Colditz hero Airey Neave, were both assassinated by Irish terrorists. ‘The IRA were lucky in who they nobbled,’ said Tebbit, mordant, but never self pitying.
Thatcher loyalist Cecil Parkinson, meanwhile, never regained his Cabinet clout after an affair with his secretary.
‘She lost Cecil over what would now be regarded as a triviality,’ he says, before verbally razoring Prescott over his Cabinet Office fling with his own secretary Tracey Temple. ‘After all, the flabby, fat, fornicating fool was at it in his office with a paid civil servant and survived!’
Political cut-throat Tebbit wields adjectives like Jack the Ripper wielded a knife. In the case of  enemies of Thatcher, he gives the blade an extra twist. Kinnock’s funeral boycott ‘marks him as the narrow minded inadequate that the Labour Party found him to be’.
Lord Tebbit, pictured with Margaret Thatcher at a Conservative party conference in Brighton
Lord Tebbit, pictured with Margaret Thatcher at a Conservative party conference in Brighton
But Tebbit remains haunted by the events that led to Thatcher’s removal as PM. He replays them again and again, but cannot change the outcome.
‘Putting Patten in charge of the Community Charge (Poll Tax) was utter folly. Give him a brown paper parcel tied with string and he’ll have it in his hands two minutes before it comes undone and falls on the floor. He was no fan of Margaret and he bungled it.
‘What really brought her down was three words, No, No, No. She wasn’t being a hysterical woman, she was saying No to three separate EU proposals. That is when Brussels decided to get her, the Commission and their friends, Heseltine and Howe,’ he says, spitting out their names.
‘Remember Howe’s resignation speech, when he said he was sent out to play for his country only to find his bat had been broken?
‘The problem was he went out to play boules not cricket, he was playing their game not ours, with Heseltine waiting in the wings confident he was going to be the inheritor. If there’s a thing of which I’m proud it’s scuppering him from becoming PM. It was a great patriotic act,’ he says, still relishing the moment.
No opportunity to avenge Heseltine is passed up. ‘He had plenty of time for the media after her death but couldn’t spare the time to come to the Lords to hear tributes to her,’ he sneers. ‘He doesn’t like the Lords – there are too many people who know too much about him.’
Norman Tebbit with his wife Lady Margaret Tebbit in Hyde Park, London
Norman Tebbit with his wife Lady Margaret Tebbit in Hyde Park, London
Tebbit maintains former Chancellor Nigel Lawson would have been a better PM than Major.
‘Good God yes. Lawson had more brains and better political vision – and wouldn’t have been found in bed with that awful woman [Edwina Currie].

‘Someone said cruelly that Major was like a cushion and always bore the imprint of the last person who sat on him. He was immensely prone to flattery. The Foreign Office told him how brilliantly he had done at Maastricht – Major didn’t even understand the Treaty he signed.’
But cricket fan Tebbit is on the backfoot when asked why, in that case, did he support Major’s leadership bid at the time? ‘Because he was the frontrunner to defeat Heseltine. I didn’t know Major very well. That is my only excuse.’ Not one of his best shots.
Certainly, he has not forgiven Thatcher’s Commons aide, the late Sir Peter Morrison, who was blamed for failing to realise in time the danger to her premiership. ‘Peter was a little tempted by the bottle at times,’ he says with lethal understatement. Others less circumspect say Morrison was a drunk.
Tebbit’s famous stand-up row with Tory Lord Young in the 1987 General Election, when Young seized him by the collar and bawled: ‘Norman, we’re about to lose this f****** election,’ still rankles. ‘He tried to screw me because he fancied my job.
‘I said to him later: “It’s time we buried the hatchet, normally I do that in the other guy’s head but I’ll make an exception in your case.”’
Tebbit clashed with Thatcher too. As Industry Secretary, he challenged her to sack him in a blazing row, accusing her of undermining him, before storming out of her Number 10 office.
‘I said: “Whilst you give me the title and responsibility of a job, I’d be obliged if you would take  your advice from me. Good day.” And I walked out.’ For once, she blinked first.
Streetwise Tebbit laughs as he recalls helping ‘unworldly’ Maggie avoid being embarrassed in her Commons jousts with Labour leaders.
Lord Tebbit has boasted of having 'scuppered' Michael Heseltine's chances of taking Thatcher's place in Number 10
Lord Tebbit has boasted of having 'scuppered' Michael Heseltine's chances of taking Thatcher's place in Number 10
‘She was blissfully unaware of sexual innuendo. She just didn’t get it. It was normal for a well brought-up woman then. Not like now when female journalists write about how drunk they were and how many people they have been to bed with.’
Maggie probably never got drunk or went to bed with anyone apart from Denis, I venture?
Tebbit replies matter of factly: ‘I suspect that’s true. It wasn’t that unusual.’

But she did enjoy a large whisky or two? ‘Yes, I never saw her the worse for drink, though sometimes the better!’
Ex-RAF man Tebbit has a characteristically blunt riposte to miners who cannot forgive Thatcher for the bloody 1984 strike, likening the sacrifice to Battle of Britain pilots, many of whom he knew.
‘Yes I do feel sad, but it’s the same sadness I would have had in 1940 at guys chucked into battle against the Luftwaffe inadequately trained because there was no alternative,’ he shrugs. ‘It doesn’t mean you’re on the side of the Luftwaffe, but it doesn’t mean you shouldn’t feel regret about it.’
Could the Tories win the next Election? ‘On present form, despite the priceless gift of Ed Miliband, I doubt it.’
Would there ever be another Maggie?
A grin spreads across his cadaverous features. ‘If I may be mischievous, if we do, she might come from the Muslim community because it’s their women who are fighting to live free lives as modern Britons. They value it more than we do, they want to be educated, study science and get on.’
Just like Margaret Thatcher.

With that, his thoughts return to the other Margaret who needs his protection. He breaks off and shouts upstairs: ‘Everything OK?’
He is her ‘thousandth man’ too.
 

Fury as Tory MP CLaire Perry lashes out at premier's mistakes

By Brendan Carlin
Outspoken Claire Perry has angered colleagues by highlighting 'mistakes' made by Lady Thatcher in the 1980s
Outspoken Claire Perry has angered colleagues by highlighting 'mistakes' made by Lady Thatcher in the 1980s
A bitter row over Margaret Thatcher’s achievements was raging among Tory MPs last night after one of them broke ranks to question her Government’s record.
Outspoken Claire Perry angered colleagues by highlighting ‘mistakes’ made by Lady Thatcher in the 1980s.
In a newspaper article, Devizes MP Mrs Perry saluted the former Prime Minister’s many accomplishments.
But she added: ‘There were some mistakes made, the biggest of which was to lose sight of the fact that behind the militant leaders of Britain’s unions . . . were millions of hard-working people who wanted work, strong communities and a good future for their children.’
Mrs Perry also said Mrs Thatcher did not recognise ‘that if the necessary industrial restructuring from those years was not backed up with investment in infrastructure, housing stock and education,  then new industries could not replace the old’.
Last night, Shipley Tory MP Philip Davies said: ‘Margaret Thatcher never lost sight of anyone like that. There are far more blue-collar, working-class people who voted for Mrs Thatcher than ever voted for the Claire Perrys of this world.’
Wellingborough Tory MP Peter Bone said Mrs Perry’s criticism of Lady Thatcher was ‘extraordinary’.
Mrs Perry last night said she was surprised if her article had been taken as critical of Lady Thatcher as she had also highlighted her ‘enormous achievements’.

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