Brighton Bomber Patrick Magee has revealed he plotted an attack against Jim Callaghan s Labour party at their conference in the seaside town, before going on to kill five people in the 1984 blast during the Tory s event.
Magee placed a bomb at the Grand Hotel on the Sussex seafront in a bid to kill Margaret Thatcher and her Conservative cabinet as part of an IRA attack.
Five people died in the blast and 31 were injured. Magee was given eight life sentences but was released in 1999 after serving just 14 years in prison.
He has now revealed how seven years before the Grand Hotel attack, he had scouted out the Brighton conference centre in October 1977 as the IRA plotted to hit back at the then-Labour Government over its Northern Ireland policies.
Tory grandee Norman Tebbit, Mrs Thatcher s loyal attack dog, has been called many things in his time, but I m not sure even his enemies would reach for the word cowardly .
He does, though. Lord Tebbit, who will be 90 in March ( if I make it ), is describing his wife s descent into dementia, and assessing how he coped when she started losing her mind and the still-functioning parts of her body.
How tough he is on himself. It was perhaps rather cowardly, but when Parliament was sitting, I did take refuge there, he says. I would drive to London. I could leave my car in the car park at the House of Lords and stay overnight and maybe see some friends, knowing that if I needed to get home quickly, I could.
The Prime Minister Boris Johnson paid his respects through Twitter.
He said: Very sad to hear the news of Margaret Tebbit’s death. She was a brave woman who showed enormous fortitude in her suffering after the 1984 Brighton bombing. My thoughts are with Norman and their family at this difficult time.
Very sad to hear the news of Margaret Tebbit’s death. She was a brave woman who showed enormous fortitude in her suffering after the 1984 Brighton bombing. My thoughts are with Norman and their family at this difficult time. Boris Johnson (@BorisJohnson) December 22, 2020
Norman and Margaret Tebbit married in 1956. He had been a pilot in the RAF before he was elected as MP for Chingford in south Essex.
My thoughts are with Norman and their family at this difficult time.
Norman and Margaret Tebbit married in 1956. He had been a pilot in the RAF and in the 1950s he became a civilian pilot for BOAC before being elected as MP for Chingford, in south Essex. They had two sons and a daughter.
Lady Tebbit was a nurse before suffering her injuries in the bombing and spent two years in Stoke Mandeville Hospital being treated for the injuries.
She regained some use of her hands and arms, despite suffering a broken neck.
Her husband left the cabinet in 1987 to be able to spend more time caring for her - and stood down from the House of Commons at the 1992 general election, becoming Lord Tebbit.