Former Conservative cabinet minister Norman Tebbit, a pivotal figure in Margaret Thatcher’s governments, has died at the age of 94. His son William said the peer passed away peacefully at home at 11:15 p.m. on 7 July. Tebbit served as employment secretary from 1981 to 1983, trade and industry secretary from 1983 to 1985 and Conservative Party chairman between 1985 and 1987, playing a central role in securing the party’s 1987 general-election victory. A former Royal Air Force and commercial pilot, he entered Parliament in 1970 and represented Chingford until stepping down in 1992. He was elevated to the House of Lords the same year and remained active there until his retirement in 2022. The politician was seriously injured in the Irish Republican Army’s bombing of Brighton’s Grand Hotel during the Conservative Party conference in October 1984; his wife, Margaret, was left paralysed and died in 2020. Tebbit left the cabinet after the 1987 election to help care for her, but continued to wield influence on the Conservative right from the backbenches and later the Lords. Remembered for his hard-line stance on trade unions and his "get on your bike" call for jobseekers, Tebbit became an emblem of 1980s Thatcherism. Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch hailed him as “an icon in British politics,” while former prime minister Rishi Sunak called him “a titan whose resilience and conviction left a lasting mark on our country.” Funeral details are expected in due course.