Norman Tebbit, 80

Cross-posted over at the Corner:

The Daily Telegraph is running an interview with Norman Tebbit, one of the Thatcherite greats, who turned 80 this week. You don’t always have to agree with him (I don’t, not always) to find it a cause for celebration that he is still around and about, busy blogging (a must read) and constantly doing his best to remind David Cameron of what a Conservative party should be.

Contrary, perhaps, to his somewhat feral reputation (one infuriated Labour politician famously described him as a “semi house-trained polecat”) and obvious delight in provocation, Lord Tebbit is a thoughtful man even if he would probably be embarrassed to admit it. I had the honor of hosting one of the first (possibly even the first) of his public engagements after the hideous IRA Brighton bombing that nearly killed him and left his wife paralyzed. The pair of them had spent hours trapped under the rubble. He had had there, he told me quietly, “plenty of time” to think. And then he changed the subject. His wife, the Daily Telegraph writer notes, quickly realized that she had been paralyzed (she was a former nurse), “but she did not want to worry her husband so she made no mention of it. When they were finally pulled out on live television, her condition became clear. Lord Tebbit, often described as the greatest prime minister we never had, left mainstream politics to look after her.”

Some extracts:

It is not a surprise that Lord Tebbit cannot find it in himself to forgive Magee [the Brighton bomber]. Does he think God exists? “I’m not sure. He ought to. Things would work better. I said to someone the other day that it’s up to God whether he forgives him [Magee], not for me. All I’d like to do is accelerate the time of the interview…”

… Lord Tebbit has been cast as a T-Rex, but, as he points out, Tories do not tend to be right-on youths. “They tell me that Conservatives are dying out, that we need to modernise, but we keep burying old people and funnily enough there are more the next year. It amuses me that when I go out people will come up to me and say, ‘When I was 20 I loathed you and everything you stood for. Now I find myself thinking, My God! I am getting just like him!’  ” Lord Tebbit argues that the priorities of government are defence, enforcing law and looking after the economy and infrastructure, and that it should not get involved with social mores. “Attitudes change a lot over time, go back and forth.”

…He says he is more of a Conservative than David Cameron. The Big Society is just a “buzzword. It’s a logo looking for a product”. He wants to turn the party back to being nationalist and jokes that he would like it to go into coalition with the UK Independence Party…

…What does he feel Mr Cameron really believes in? “I’m not sure what he believes in. Let me put it tactfully like that.” Later he quotes Corinthians: “ ’If the trumpet gives an uncertain sound, who shall follow?’ David was more concerned about being prime minister than what he was going to do as prime minister. I think that’s the heart of it.” Lord Tebbit does concede some admiration for Mr Cameron for getting the UN resolution over Libya. But even this comes with a caveat.

“Whether it was wise to do so is another matter. I have the gravest doubt that what follows Gaddafi will be sweetness and light.” Of the rush to war, Lord Tebbit says that “it was thoughtless”.

“Sometimes one has to ignore the call of ‘do something’ in favour of sitting down and working out what it is that needs to be done.”

Many more years, please.