Simon Hoggart's sketch: Chingford skinhead, Prince of Darkness, smiley old gent | Politics | The Guardian Simon Hoggart's sketch Iain Duncan Smith campaigning in Chingford and Woodford Green with his precessor Lord Tebbit. Photograph: Sean Smith Monday 2 May 2005 05.46 EDT First published on Monday 2 May 2005 05.46 EDT Share on Messenger Close The Prince of Darkness arrived back in Chingford. For one of Satan's most senior satraps, he looked surprisingly amiable: white haired and smiling, like a department store Santa who's decided to lose weight during the off-season. He is still in pain from the Brighton bomb in 1984, but he concentrates his energies on his wife, Margaret, who will always be in a wheelchair. "I'm trying to get a platform fitted to the back, so I can ride postilion for her." But I always thought Norman Tebbit's image as a snarling polecat - the "Chingford skinhead" as somebody called him - was largely defensive.

"It's not me you don't like," he seemed to be saying, "it's this image I've constructed." And indeed, in this seat which he represented until 1992 when Iain Duncan Smith took over, he seems to be liked and even loved. Mothers ushered their children to be photographed with him, though he can't resist the occasional snarl. Putting his arms round three children while their mother fiddles with the camera, he says: "Course, if I were a schoolteacher, I'd be nicked for having my hands on them." It's true that some people veered away as we approached, though the only harsh words came from a Labour canvasser: "I remember you from years ago. Oh mah gawd!" said with the air of one who has accidentally bitten into a toad sandwich. Tebbit was touring the constituency with Duncan Smith, who's defending a safe majority. It's a lower middle-class area, which elsewhere would have gone Labour in the landslides. North-east London stayed loyal to the Tories, possibly because these are aspirational people, glad to get out of the slums.

The Kray family are buried in the cemetery, to the annoyance of residents, since they didn't live here. But like many East Enders, they presumably felt that Chingford was a nice place to end up. The northern part of the seat was the last place Churchill represented; Lawrence of Arabia had a sort of holiday hut here. Immigration is an issue, but mainly they mean British people in social housing. A woman approaches IDS and says it's a pity he was prime minister for such a short time. "Hold that thought!" he replies cheerily. Meanwhile, Tebbit is on to Europe; a very good thing in some ways, he thinks, bringing free trade and lower pollution. We do need to get our fisheries back, and control over our borders. But the bureaucracy ..."They've been debating for two years who to put on a carton of yoghurt." Even immigrants seem to like him. He chats to Mladen Jovcic, who came here from Serbia after the war. "He's as British as I am!" says Tebbit slapping him on the back, though to be fair Mr Jovcic is a Tory councillor. But other new arrivals get the glad hand too.

A shy black girl is glad the Tories have opposed the clauses against religious defamation. ("She'll be an evangelical Christian," says Duncan Smith. "They're fighting the Muslims for Afro-Caribbean members and are afraid the new law might stop them.") Two Muslims are grateful for Tebbit's opposition to the anti-terrorism bill, or at least the "bang up the lot" clauses. "I thought we had that sorted 1,000 years ago," he says. He can't even bring himself to be very rude about Tony Blair. "I don't think he's a liar, just a fantasist. He says whatever he likes, and then he believes it." Someone says that there ought to be more like him in British politics, and he agrees. "I'm having myself cloned, so there'll be 650 of me in the House of Commons ." I decide not to hold that thought. Socialism Today - Who is Iain Duncan Smith? Who is Iain Duncan Smith? Prospects for the Tory Party The Tory leadership election was completely overshadowed by events in the US.

Yet the result announced a day late on 13 September - a decisive victory for the party's Thatcherite rightwing - will have far-reaching effects on British politics, argues LYNN WALSH. THE BALLOT OF Conservative Party members resulted in a decisive victory for the right-wing, Thatcherite Iain Duncan Smith (aka IDS) over the 'One Nation', 'liberal' Kenneth Clarke. The choice presented to the Tory ranks, Duncan Smith or Clarke, was the result of the first stage of the election procedure, an exhaustive ballot of the 166 Tory MPs to select two candidates from amongst the original five contenders. All of them, apart from Michael Portillo and Kenneth Clarke, were firmly on the right of the party. At the start of the contest, Portillo was the frontrunner, and clearly the favourite amongst the media. But the 'modernisation' agenda of Portillo, a former Thatcher acolyte, was clearly too radical for most Tory MPs. They were well aware that he would get nowhere with the Tory ranks who would ultimately decide the outcome. Portillo got 50 votes on the first round, but was subsequently eliminated. David Davis, a former Europe minister, and Michael Ancram, party chairman, were also eliminated.

This left IDS and Clarke, who in contrast to IDS appeared to stand on the Tories' liberal wing. In reality, the electorate of 250,000 to 300,000 party members (average age 65, with only 5% under 35 years of age) had a choice between a right-winger and an extreme right-winger. There was a 78% turnout. Sixty-one percent (155,933) voted for Smith, 100,864 for Clarke. Moving quickly to appoint a new parliamentary leadership, IDS claimed that the new shadow cabinet represented 'a broad spectrum of the party'. In fact, Thatcher's current favourite has appointed the most right-wing leadership in Tory history, dominated by reactionary, nationalistic euro-sceptics. One Tory MP who preferred to remain anonymous said they were 'the nasty, hard-right'. Those best known to the public, like Michael Howard, now shadow chancellor, are still widely reviled for the reactionary role they played in the Thatcher and Major governments.

IDS has brought in two of his rivals in the first-stage parliamentary ballot: Michael Ancram (a wealthy Tory aristocrat) as deputy leader and shadow foreign secretary, and David Davis as party chair. Some of the lesser known figures are even more right wing. Oliver Letwin, for instance, now shadow home secretary, was the one who during the general election campaign blurted out the Tory right's real project: a £20 billion cutback in public spending to provide for tax cuts to the rich. Bill Cash, perhaps the most fanatic euro-phobe in parliament, who advocates British withdrawal from the European Union, is now shadow attorney general. Even his best friends regard him as a head-banger. Only one of Clarke's supporters gets a position, with Quentin Davies appointed as shadow Northern Ireland secretary. IDS boasts that he favoured eight Portillo supporters but he has not given positions to the most prominent, Francis Maude and Archie Norman. In any case, some of the Portillistas themselves have an extreme right-wing antecedence, like John Bercow, now a shadow treasury minister, who was a former member of the right-wing, racist Monday Club.

One former senior Tory minister (anonymously) commented: "This is the first time the guttersnipe tendency has taken control of a major British party". (Guardian, 20 September) Events in the US have put things on hold for a period, but this Thatcherite triumph is a recipe for turmoil and splits. Return of the Chingford Skinhead WHO IS IDS? Before the leadership election he was virtually unknown outside Westminster. Where did he spring from? Unburdened by charisma, he undoubtedly has an impeccable Tory background. The son of a second world war Spitfire pilot, IDS was an officer in the elite Scots Guards. He married the daughter of an aristocrat, a big landowner in Buckinghamshire, and sends his son to Eton. In 1981 he left the army and went to GEC Marconi, as an international arms salesman. Through this he got to know right-wing military strategists now back in the Pentagon, as well as ideologues of the right-wing American Enterprise Institute. He left Marconi in 1988, just before a scandal blew up about the company making excessive profits from government contracts.

IDS switched to property speculation (which was unsuccessful) and at the same time moved into Tory politics. A prominent sponsor was Grant Howard, a wealthy businessman closely associated with Enoch Powell, the notorious West Midlands MP who stirred up racial hatred in the 1970s. Many of IDS's quietly growing retinue came from the Monday Club, a right-wing, ultra-nationalistic, racist clique within the Tory Party. In 1992 IDS entered parliament as MP for Chingford, formerly held by Norman Tebbitt, the original 'Chingford Skinhead' who long played the role of Thatcher's head cheerleader and political bovver boy. Handing over his seat to IDS, Tebbitt said: 'If you think I'm rightwing, check out this man'. A former fellow officer who served with IDS in Zimbabwe (when it was Southern Rhodesia) commented that IDS was 'not marked out for the highest ranks'. A senior Tory commented: 'He's a nice chap - an army officer, with all that implies'. Another Tory commented: he is 'not the sharpest knife in the drawer'. A former GEC Marconi colleague said that IDS was 'not in the high-flyer category'.

Yet this lacklustre character has now emerged as the Tories' leader, at least for the time being. A crucial ingredient of this rise is undoubtedly his record as a dogged opponent of the euro and further EU integration. Along with Bill Cash, IDS led the 'guerrilla struggle' against the legislation introduced by John Major to comply with the Maastricht Treaty. In other words, IDS has an impeccable record on the fundamental issue currently unifying the Tory right. During the leadership campaign, IDS briefly flirted with a more 'liberal', 'socially-inclusive' stance. This was perhaps a bit of political wash from Michael Portillo's campaign. In one interview IDS floated the possibility of a 'review' of Section 28 (the notorious anti-gay clause of the Tories' education act, unrepealed by New Labour) and of a debate about the legalisation of cannabis. He soon retreated, however, in response to the hostile reaction from the Tory ranks. On fundamental economic and social issues IDS's policies are to the right of those implemented by the Thatcher government. He favours reducing public spending from 40% of GDP to 30-35%, implying the £20 billion cuts openly advocated by Letwin.

He wants a two-tier health service, with government 'credits' which would allow the wealthy to top them up to gain quick access to private treatment. Apart from Europe, this policy was one of the main differences with Clarke, who favours 'modernised', publicly-funded services à la Blair. Duncan Smith's feeble attempt to shed his right-wing image was doomed. A row (triggered by a report in the pro-Tory Daily Telegraph) illuminated the virulent racist trend within the Tory Party. It came to light that the vice-chair of IDS's leadership campaign in Wales was one Edgar Griffin, vice-chair of Montgomeryshire Conservative Association. It was well known in Tory circles that Griffin was the father of Nick Griffin, leader of the neo-fascist British National Party (BNP), which had recently been involved in racist attacks in Bradford and other cities. Edgar Griffin's wife, Jean, is a BNP activist who previously stood as a BNP candidate against IDS in Chingford. In the Griffin's front room in Welshpool there is a BNP hotline, answered on at least one occasion by Edgar Griffin. Duncan Smith instantly dropped Griffin from his leadership campaign, and ensured that he was rapidly expelled from the Tory Party.

Edgar Griffin was indignant. He freely admitted that he supports the 'voluntary' repatriation of ethnic minorities and believes that the vast majority of asylum seekers should be deported. He expressed sympathy for the BNP, which he claimed is a 'democratic party'. "The two parties (the BNP and the Tory Party) are almost the same in terms of long-term plans. In terms of the manifestos of the Tories and the BNP, you can hardly tell the difference". (Guardian, 24 August) A party member for 48 years, Edgar Griffin said: "My views are ordinary Tory views - there is nothing startling or extraordinary about my views. They are simply in line with, frankly, the ordinary common or garden worker in the party". (Guardian, 25 August) Duncan Smith said that he found the BNP 'abhorrent'. Stephen Norris, Tory candidate for the London mayoral contest last year, appropriately commented: "By their friends ye shall know them. (IDS's) whole stance has made him attractive to just these sorts of people".

In fact, as soon as he entered parliament in 1992, Duncan Smith played the race card, blaming ethnic minorities, rather than Tory cuts, for causing housing shortages. Shortly afterwards, he asked a question in parliament about voluntary repatriation under the 1971 Immigration Act, clearly signalling his interest in the policy advocated by the Monday Club. Euro-feuding BOTH DUNCAN SMITH and Clarke did their best to avoid publicly discussing Europe, conscious of public weariness at the bitter euro-feud. Europe, however, is the prime issue of political economy dividing the party from top to bottom. The fragile truce was blown apart by Lady Thatcher. As the ballot papers went out to party members, Thatcher once again asserted her proprietorial rights over the party. She had previously endorsed both Major and Hague as her successors, before turning against them. She now supported IDS as 'infinitely the better leader'. She dismissed Clarke as a has-been who could only lead the party to 'disaster'. In her retirement Thatcher has clearly moved to the right, and reportedly now privately supports withdrawal from the EU, fully in tune with IDS and the Monday Club.

Thatcher's intervention immediately detonated another deadly round of combat, drawing in Major, Heseltine and other former Tory leaders. The main effect was to re-focus public attention on the party's biggest electoral handicap - the poisonous legacy of Thatcher's 18 years of cuts, privatisation, and attacks on workers' living standards, for which the Tories are still hated by a big majority of voters. Infuriated by Thatcher's intervention, Major countered by denouncing her role in inciting the Maastricht rebels - the 'bastards' led by IDS - to vote against his government. Supporting Clarke, Major warned that IDS's right-wing views would be a serious liability to the Tories. Michael Heseltine, another prominent minister under Thatcher, warned that the Tories would be 'out for lunch' for 15 years if they elected IDS. The days when the Tory grandees loyally maintained a united face in public while stabbing one another behind the scenes have gone forever. In contrast to Duncan Smith and his coterie, Kenneth Clarke appeared more and more of a 'liberal', or even (as some commentators claimed) a 'left' Tory.

True, his views are not very different from those of New Labour, though this is one more measure of how far Blair has shifted the party to the right. Clarke's 18-year record in Thatcher's government, however, speaks for itself - a reactionary home secretary, a pro-business chancellor, not one spark of opposition to Thatcher's anti-working class policies. Clarke is closely tied to big business, reportedly earning over £250,000 a year from his various directorships. These include sitting on the board of British American Tobacco (BAT), even absenting himself on a sales promotion trip to Vietnam at the beginning of the leadership contest. During the campaign, there were renewed allegations of large-scale international smuggling of cigarettes by BAT to avoid tobacco duty in the UK and elsewhere. Prospects for the Tory Party WHAT ARE THE prospects for the Tory Party under the IDS leadership? The struggle over Europe will undoubtedly continue, and there will also be conflict over IDS's right-wing social and economic agenda. Defections (to the Liberal Democrats or even to New Labour) are possible, as is a serious split. Electorally, it is harder at this point to predict how a more distinctly nationalistic, right-wing Tory Party will fare.

In the short term, a Little England party, openly hostile to publicly financed services for all, reactionary on social issues such as minority rights, will not be able to gain the six million votes needed to defeat Labour. The Liberal Democrats are clearly likely to gain at the expense of the Tories in the next period. In the longer run, however, there is clearly the dangerous possibility that, on the basis of mass disillusionment with Labour, and perhaps with the Liberal Democrats too, the Tories, transformed by IDS into a Little England party, could win wider support in a highly polarised political situation. Under certain conditions Duncan Smith, or a replacement, could develop in a right-wing populist direction, on similar lines to Haider in Austria or Berlusconi in Italy. The immediate prospect, however, is that Tory support will be further eroded. The mood of society, including sections of the middle class who previously voted for Thatcher, has swung to the left - just as the Tory Party has moved to consolidate the domination of its Thatcherite core. This is recognised by the Tories who supported Portillo or Clarke. Criticising Duncan Smith, Major commented that "reinforcing our appeal to our own supporters on the right... is too narrow and will marginalise us.

If we appear to disengage from the centre ground, we will delight Labour and the Liberal Democrats, whom we cannot safely ignore: certainly no Conservative member with a Liberal Democrat on their tail could feel safe". (The Spectator, 25 August) Clarke himself made a similar point: "If we still look unelectable at the next election... people will look for an alternative government. If the Liberal Democrats conduct themselves as a serious party of opposition and we carry on drifting to the right, they will at last have a very good opportunity". (Financial Times, 22 August) Some commentators have suggested that Duncan Smith, coming from the right, will be in a stronger position than Portillo and Clarke to move the party towards the 'centre ground'. Roy Hattersley, for instance, suggests that IDS could play the role that Neil Kinnock played in the Labour Party. Elected from the left, Kinnock abandoned his old left baggage and prepared the way, through witch-hunts against the left, for the leadership of Smith and later Blair. Given IDS's character and the Thatcherite hold on the parliamentary party, however, reinforced by the ultra-conservative mindset of the party's ageing membership, a 'Kinnock' role appears somewhat unlikely.

Besides, IDS does not have any big battalions, any equivalent of the trade union bloc votes that Kinnock was able to muster for his 'modernising' 'reforms'. Lord (Robert) Blake, a historian of the Conservative Party, and something of a Tory grandee himself, comments: 'If the Conservatives do not get their act together now, they could easily be pushed into third place'. But how can they resolve 'internal wrangles' when the party is fundamentally divided over Europe? The Liberal Democratic leader, Charles Kennedy, has already issued a call to disenchanted Tory MPs, MEPs and councillors: 'We will offer them a warm welcome'. Both the Portillo and the Clarke camps are denying that there will be defections. But Steve Norris, previously vice-chair of the party (dropped by IDS), predicts that if Duncan Smith takes it "way off to the right I and many thousands of others would leave the party". (Financial Times, 14 September) The pro-European MP Ian Taylor also denied that he intends to leave: 'I am a Conservative and I have no intention of leaving my party'. Ambiguously, however, he added: 'I profoundly hope my party does not leave me'.

This hints that at a certain point Taylor and others would attempt to preserve the 'real Conservative Party' through a separate organisation. Two prominent supporters of Portillo, Francis Maude and Archie Norman, are now seeking big-business finance for a unofficial 'think-tank', in effect a party grouping, to promote Portillo's 'modernising' agenda. Events in the Tory Party show that, despite New Labour's recent landslide, politics in this country are entering into a very fluid phase. They will become more and more fluid as mass opposition grows to Labour's pro-big business policies during the deepening of the recession. Fightback Canada - Thatcher's death: We remember her crimes against our class Thatcher's death: We remember her crimes against our class Tweet The TV is full of the sycophantic outpourings of right-wing commentators and politicians about the sudden death of Margaret Thatcher. The Establishment has rallied to praise her. The Queen has sent a personal message of condolence to the Thatcher family. The news is full of tributes, portraying Thatcher as some kind of champion of freedom and liberty. Of course, nothing could be further from the truth. She was a champion — a champion of capitalism, the ruling class, and all it represents.

Her death is now being used to “rehabilitate” her, to paint her as a heroine. Of course, Margaret Thatcher is very much admired by representatives of her class, the ladies and gentlemen of the ruling class, as a fervent defender of capitalism, the existing social order, and their class interests. For us, Thatcher represented and epitomized privilege, wealth and the inequality of class society. While Prime Minister between 1979 and 1990, she epitomized capitalism in the raw. She set about attempting to destroy the power of the trade unions and plunder the state through privatization, all in a vain attempt to restore the position of British capitalism. She attempted to drive the working class back to Victorian times by attacking all those who resisted, especially the miners, as “the enemies within”. Whole swathes of anti-trade union legislation were brought onto the statute book. The right to strike was all but removed. Gone was the image of One Nation Toryism. The Tory Grandees were pushed aside by the Tory rabble, who bestowed the leadership of the Tory party on Thatcher. She represented a new breed of Tory: the narrow, parvenue outlook of a shopkeepers’ daughter.

It reflected the degeneration of British capitalism, which has been in a process of long-term decline. Her policies, based upon the economic doctrines of monetarism - which simply represented a return to the pre-war balanced budgets - resulted in the destruction of 20% of manufacturing industry between 1979 and 1981. It caused a greater destruction of industry than the German Luftwaffe during the Second World War. This drove up levels of unemployment to over 3 million; meanwhile Norman Tebbit, the Chingford Skinhead, lectured the unemployed to “get on their bike” to seek work. In 1984-85, she set about attempting to destroy the National Union of Mineworkers and smash the mining industry. Everything was done to starve the miners back to work. Thatcher was hoping for a quick victory, her “industrial Falklands”, but the miners held out for another 12 months. Ultimately, it was only the sabotage of the TUC and Labour leaders that sealed the miners’ fate and handed victory to Thatcher.

As with the memories of 1926, the experience of the 1984-5 strike was burned into the consciousness of the working class. They will never forget and never forgive. The creed of monetarism (of Thatcherism) elevates greed and egotism to a principle. Its philosophy is that everyone must grab as much as they can, despite the consequences. They should climb the social ladder at the expense of the rest of us. The richest elite are praised to the skies, while the poor are condemned as lazy and indolent. They represent the “undeserving poor”, as the Victorians described them, the “welfare scroungers” as they are described by the Tory press today, who should find non-existent work or be deprived of their benefits. This is the law of the jungle, the law of capitalism, which Thatcher espoused. She denied “society” and promoted individual selfishness, which epitomized the outlook of the bourgeoisie in this epoch of decline. The market has its high priests, and Thatcher represented one of these apologists.

Together with Reagan, her counterpart in the United States, she spearheaded a “counter-revolution” against working people, robbing them of their rights and past gains. She reflected the fact that capitalism in decline could no longer afford the reforms of the past. For the super rich, the mindless pursuit of wealth and the worship of greed are the over-riding principles. This is their morality, their religion. Of course, this is all hidden behind a moralizing screen of patriotism, freedom and enterprise. This, of course, is the freedom to exploit and enrich themselves at the expense of others. The capitalism system is based upon this, on the search for maximum profits, and the extraction of unpaid labour from the efforts of the working class. Thatcher represented the Establishment - an Establishment which is now in crisis and is increasingly being discredited: Parliament, Government, the Press, the Police, the Church. One scandal after another, involving businessmen, politicians, police-chiefs and judges, has laid bare the cesspit of corruption that extends to the very top. Under Thatcher’s “democracy”, the police-chiefs were manufacturing evidence against striking miners at Orgreave and Liverpool supporters at Hillsborough. But that was perfectly in order.

The means justified the ends. One expects the fawning of Conservative politicians over Margaret Thatcher, but the Labour leadership, to their shame, also stoop to this level. They view “politics” not as a war between the classes, but as a parliamentary game. They are out of touch from the lives of ordinary working people who have been directly and indirectly affected by Thatcherism. “She will be remembered as a unique figure”, states Ed Miliband. “She reshaped the politics of a whole generation. She was Britain's first woman Prime Minister. She moved the centre ground of British politics and was a huge figure on the world stage.” But all this “shaping” and “moving” was done in the name of True Blue Conservatism and to the detriment of the working class. Ed Miliband went on: “The Labour Party disagreed with much of what she did and she will always remain a controversial figure. But we can disagree and also greatly respect her political achievements and her personal strength.” And what achievements were these? She made the rich richer and the poor poorer. She destroyed working class communities in the interests of Rent, Interest and Profit.

Shamefully, the Labour Party has announced that it will suspend campaigning in the local elections until further notice following Thatcher's death. It would have been more appropriate for them to have declared that they will compensate all those miners who were sacked by the Thatcher government while defending their class. Former Labour prime ministers, Tony Blair and Gordon Brown, have fallen over themselves in praise of the woman despised by millions. Brown put out his this statement: “commemorating Lady Thatcher's many decades of service to our country”! It would have more correct to say service to the bankers and speculators, the City of London, and the giant monopolies. Brown went on: “She will be remembered not only for being Britain's first female Prime Minister and holding the office for 11 years, but also for the determination and resilience with which she carried out all her duties throughout her public life. Even those who disagreed with her never doubted the strength of her convictions and her unwavering belief in Britain's destiny in the world.” To make such a statement is to spit in the face of all those who were prepared to stand up to Thatcher and Thatchersism.

It is an insult to those who stood by the working class as they faced the Tory onslaught throughout the 1980s and 1990s. Brown continues: “During our time in Number 10, Sarah and I invited Lady Thatcher to revisit Downing Street and Chequers — something which we know she enjoyed very much.” Again, this reveals the hobnobbing of the Labour leaders with the Tories, who they regard not as class enemies but as friends. They too “very much enjoyed” the company of this bourgeois Lady. Tony Blair also issued his tribute. He described Lady Thatcher as "a towering political figure". He went on: “Very few leaders get to change not only the political landscape of their country but of the world. Margaret was such a leader. Her global impact was vast. And some of the changes she made in Britain were, in certain respects at least, retained by the 1997 Labour government, and came to be implemented by governments around the world.” Blair was, as he admits, a continuer of Thatcher’s policies. That is why he kept the anti-trade union laws. That’s why he continued the privatizations. That is why he too bowed down before the market.

Blair was an agent of capitalism in the ranks of the Labour movement. Even the ex-left and former home secretary David Blunkett described Thatcher as an “outstanding leader and, as the first woman prime minister in the United Kingdom, a groundbreaking politician.” Meanwhile, Harriet Harman, the deputy leader of the Labour Party, had the cheek to put out a message: “My condolences to Thatcher family. First woman PM, a towering figure in British politics.” Many feminists fell for this rubbish that Thatcher as Prime Minister represented progress for women. It was the line of the recent film “The Iron Lady”, where Thatcher was portrayed by Meryl Streep, and who again attempted to justify her role. These people only had to ask the wives of former miners to put them straight. Whether it is a man or woman attacking the working class is completely irrelevant. It is the class interests that are important and not the sex of a politician. For the overwhelming majority of women, especially in the former mining areas destroyed by her government, Thatcher was not a person to look up to but a person to be despised. It is clear from these remarks that the Labour leadership is a million miles removed from the trade union movement and ordinary workers. We knew Thatcher as our class enemy.

We must now cleanse the Labour movement of those who simply use it for their own purposes and careers. The pro-capitalist leaders must be replaced by genuine fighters for the interests of the working class. The only thing we would say about Thatcher is that she faithfully fought for the interests of her class, however blindly. It is high time we had leaders in our movement who, instead of pandering to the enemy, would faithfully and forcibly represent our class interests, namely, the fight to put an end to capitalism and the establishment of socialism. Only then will we have repaid the debt to all those who fought to the bitter end against Thatcherism and the system it represents. See also: A conversation with Norman Tebbit CDG Fundraising Networking by AVPT Short Courses (page 2) - issuu issuu Issuu on Google+ SO TELL US Lord Tebbit what was it really like? Conversation to be led by Liz St Clair Norman Tebbit has been described as the Chingford skinhead, a biker and on one occasion as a 'semi house-trained pole cat'. All these descriptions fail to recognise that Norman has a humorous side*, likes a laugh and like Mr Punch enjoys cutting some capers as well as bullying people.

Margaret Tebbit Norman Tebbit’s Tribute to the late Margaret Thatcher April 11 2013 Tributes to Margaret Thatcher were moving in many respects. Lord Tebbit recalled the Brighton bomb and its tragic consequences for his wife. He said of Margaret Thatcher's compassion and kindness: "I cannot think of a precedent for a secretary of state remaining in office as Secretary of State although absent from the Cabinet for over three months. She allowed me to run my office from my hospital bed." But he was sorry for one thing: "She, of course, was brought down in the end, not by the electorate but by her colleagues," Norman is a sort of enforcer clown to Margaret, a keen follower if a tad buffoonish on occasions. Norman was born in Enfield and worked as a journalist with the Financial Times before spending four years with the RAF and later joining the airline BOAC as a pilot. He entered politics in 1970.

Served as Secretary of State for Employment, Secretary of State for Trade and Industry and President of the Board of Trade (October 1983 - September 1985), as Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster and as party chairman (1985 1987). During the Brighton hotel bombing he was injured and his wife, Margaret, was permanently disabled. In the aftermath of urban riots in the summer of 1981 , Norman Tebbit responded to a suggestion that the rioting was caused by unemployment by saying: Liz St Clair works at Conservative Party HQ as Programme Officer for Women2Win and Director of Development for the Conservative Women’s Organisation. Both roles involve training campaigners and candidates seeking roles in public life – especially in Parliament. She has over 20 years experience as a political researcher and special adviser in Parliament and in local government . ‘I grew up in the 1930s with an unemployed father. He did not riot. He got on his bike and looked for work, and he went on looking until he found it.’ A conversation with Norman Tebbit CDG Fundraising Networking AVPT Short Courses Follow publisher Unfollow publisher Be the first to know about new publications.

The Socialist Way: Return of the Chingford Skinhead (Part 1) Thursday, 17 June 2010 Return of the Chingford Skinhead (Part 1) Continuing on the theme of unemployment, not that this continues a medley with a happy beat about it, well at lest not for those of us on the receiving-end of a dole cheque and battling to get by on it’s pigeon-toed pittance. I consider that many on the so-called left, (which is a definition that I do not like using to describe my own politics, being an unadulterated socialist) positively do not grasped the frostiness, the reality that is a life spent not so much on the dole, but the experience of having to make do with very little and then somehow find a way through it all, of course it’s very much harder today in this new age of austerity. Not so much then a case of self-deprivation (refraining from worldly pleasures) but rather the instance of denial being inflicted, and no prize-winners in holding first place in a contest for approximating; authoritatively inflicted as a recurring nightmare that is geared to and tailor-made to meet the imperatives of capitalism.

Bizarre and yet not comical how a word such as ‘austerity’ lies dormant and then its groan is heard everywhere, like a rickettsial attack it immediacy pokes its method through the world as governments start deficit reduction, the next stage of holding up and maintaining the system that runs, ruins and dominates all our lives. Two years ago throughout the world the banking system almost collapsed at the hands of that barefaced gaggle of evildoers, who stuck in their collected thumbs and pulled out a fat plum and said what good boys are we, while millions lost homes, and the lives of many broken and lost for ever, such unimaginable and rarely unreported real human tragedies lie stunned and strewed like dead bodies on a battlefield.

The real anguish is that this is allowed to happen without any really effective opposition from those who say they are of the left, and for years now I’ve seen and observed them play in the dirt with a flavour of the month, the Internet is a wash with this ludicrousness, the real problem to all our collected troubles is the capitalist system, It is as it has always been, an affront to every man, woman and child that adorns the world with their very presence, but who are still denied and fleeced of so much. Remember Norman Tebbit: Oh sorry, let’s give him his proper title the ‘Chingford Skinhead’, and whilst we do remember, which is not as hard, as he often makes the news with his dogmatic, odious and grandiloquent views; but let’s just recall that this was not only the man that told the working class to get on your bike when he said: “I grew up in the '30s with an unemployed father. He didn't riot.

He got on his bike and looked for work, and he kept looking 'til he found it.” Now Tebbit said and did many things whilst he was a loyal member of the Thatcher crew of buccaneers, robbing and plundering the lives of the generation that I suppose, I belong too. I’ve raised Norman from the departed in this post because when he retired from his Chingford seat he was replaced and succeeded by Iain Duncan Smith, who was said to be Tebbit’s protégé, in fact Tebbit said of Smith: “"If you think I'm right-wing, you should meet this guy". Now of course for those of us in the UK Iain Duncan Smith will be best recollected as the failed and conked out, right wing leader of the Conservatives’ from some years back, a short stay (12 September 2001 to 6 November 2003) and leaving by way of losing a vote of confidence amongst his parliamentary party, something which Cameron has moved to avoid by commanding changes recently brought about to weaken the powerful 1922 committee and the part that it plays in ether electing or bringing down leaders such as Thatcher.

Anyhow, what matters is the significance that Iain Duncan Smith, has taken up office in the coalition and heading the Department for Work and Pensions, as its Secretary of State, and if we keep that in mind we can now see that the Tebbit protégé has indeed become the recipient of the ‘Chingford Skinhead’s’ bother-boots. Tebbit was both Employment Secretary (In 2001 the employment functions were split off this and transferred to the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions) and Trade and Industry Secretary (now The Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills with the incumbent: Vince Cable in the Chair) under Thatcher, these were two separate departments which Tebbit left his mark on, that changed probably to the detriment and degradation of us all, the way our everyday lives have paned out in and under modern capitalism.

When Iain Duncan Smith, was forced to relinquish the leadership of the Tory party; he set-about basically reinventing himself politically, being appointed chairman for the Centre for Social Justice, which has been described as a centre-right think tank that works with small charities in its aim of finding innovative policies for tackling poverty, this is obviously a joke that attempts to give this Tory and his party a cloak that covers and conceals there real contempt for working people, acting as the apologist while placing blame and onuses on the shoulders of poor people. Well whatever else one could say about Iain Duncan Smith or IDS as he likes to be known, it worked, not just winning new respect in his own party but amongst some members of the Labour Party such as the great Frank Field, who was given the role of "poverty czar" in David Cameron's coalition government, but more about him latter. So for now, I think I’ve set the seen and the partial background to the unemployment crises that is about to unfold here in the UK. In my second part, I will take a closer look at who is doing what at Works and Pensions, what may be in store for claimants?

And how do we build an effective campaign nationally, and what form should it take? Posted by

Question: In British politics, who was described as ‘The Chingford Skinhead’?
Answer: Norman Tebbit