I listened to the BBC radio account of the Brighton bomb. It was not quite as I remember it.
As Margaret Thatcherâs chief Policy Adviser I was with her at Brighton.We worked on the speech into the night, ending the session a few minutes before the explosion. My room, 114, was close to hers but on the side of the hotel where her suite was at the front. I had got back to my room and was preparing for bed when there were two loud bangs. It sounded like two bombs, but the second must have been the collapsing masonry. My room survived.  The emergency services then came up the rear fire escape and hammered on my door telling me I had to leave the building. When I opened the door it was an eerie scene. Some lights had stayed on. The damage to the main centre of the hotel was unclear as there was a dust cloud still settling. I got out by the rear fire escape and walked  along the sea front thinking about what to do. Outside the full enormity of the attack was more visible and I then realised with horror and grief that people must have been killed or injured. I had to ring home to let my children know I was safe. This was pre mobile personal phones. I  needed somewhere to sleep and keep warm.
The BBC said Margaret reconvened with her media man, Robin Butler. Robin was her civil service Principal Private Secretary so he did not help with the speech or event. This  was a party event. I was there to help shape the government policy content to ensure the speech did keep to government policy in its non political passages as it needed to be a statement of government intent as well as a party speech.
Margaret was taken away from the scene. Later that morning I connected with her via the  always excellent No 10 switchboard. Margaret and the  small speech team agreed the conference would continue and we proposed a new introduction referring to the bomb and explaining it would not  change the speech or conference. I had managed to borrow a bedroom in another hotel to catch a couple of hours of sleep from a friendly journalist who had enjoyed a sleep before his paper told him to get up and file on the story of the bomb.
October 14, 2024
It was a step change in the effectiveness of the IRA. No longer a small group of old men with a few rusty revolvers. They could now hit the heart of the British government.
Along with the huge bombs in the City of London and the attack on 10 Downing Street, it was a game changer. The official line was we hold the line, but it was no longer a matter that happened across the sea in a small corner that was of little concern to the powers that be.
October 14, 2024
I recall the shock of the bombing of the hotel and the death and injuries caused. Norman Tebbitt and, in particular, his wife were among those I recall were seriously injured. The PM made the right response in her speech.
It was a difficult and dangerous time. I still have the mirror on a telescopic stick I was issued with to check if there was an IED fitted under my car each morning before driving to my place of work.
October 14, 2024
At least the SNP un Salmon & Sturgeon were peaceful in their demands but they did huge harm to Scotland concentration on independence and not much more rather than running the place efficiently. Blair and Major wrongly in my view caved in to the IRA wich also gave all the EU annexing issues now. 5 died, 30 people injured in including Norman Tebbit and his poor wife.
The culprit was released early under the Good Friday Agreement by the dire Blair Government.
So Robert Jenrick signed a letter saying âwe prefer it (the EU) to an us against them, go it alone dystopiaâ so can we really trust him now? JR. He still say he is a fan net zero but has now said he will appoint Rees Mogg as Chairman who is almost a climate realist.
So Emma Pinchbeck will be joining the Climate Change Committee as Chief Executive from 11 November. Emma will oversee the publication of the Seventh Carbon Budget advice in early 2025 and the fourth Climate Change Risk Assessment independent assessment in 2026.
She is a bubbly, pleasant lass rather like an arm waving weather girl. She has some Oxford humanities degree and zero grasp of energy, engineering realities, physics, energy economics rather like Chris Stark who proceeded her and is now action for this appalling government – she even says things like âthe science is not negotiableâ but her grasp of science is almost zero. And yet Ed Miliband seems to think he is a God & can change the laws of Physics, entropy, energy and even the climate. We have virtually the most expensive energy in the World. 3-4 times prices in the US and Camada.
See Matt Ridley
How Ed Miliband plans to conjure electricity out of nothing. In the Spectator.
October 14, 2024
Perhaps JR would like to comment on the insanity of the new Roundabout in Cambridge with 36 traffic lights.
Work started in 2022, and it features pedestrian crossings and a dedicated cycle lane. The Greater Cambridge Partnership (GCP) said the total cost of the scheme had been ÂŁ31.9m.
Doubtless about ÂŁ5m PA to maintain too. What drives this insanity, is it people on the make and mutual back scratching/corruption or zealot loons Libdims and Labour it seems? Doubtless they call it investment and improvements meanwhile millions of dangerous (especially for cyclists) potholes, all over the place, go un-repaired.
Reply I have often commented on the superiority of roundabouts to traffic lights, and condemned expensive and bad raid mismanagement schemes. I continue to complain about California Cross roads in my area. The Lib Demâs spent ÂŁ5.7 m creating a less safe junction with no authorised road markings to guide pedestrians and vehicle drivers. We are investigating how or if they got authority for using non standard road markings that leave everyone in doubt.
October 14, 2024
Traffic light are indeed Socialist and about state control – ignored of course by most cyclists – certainly in London. Even in the dead of night with no traffic you get held up for ages. In London when the traffic lights all ocasionally failed the system worked far better. For that money they should have had underpasses and bridges at least. Or 200 3 bed houses for people to live in!
October 14, 2024
Reply to reply
Sent a copy of a drone photograph of the California Junction to many friends and relatives.
Comments back were reasonably short, and contained a number of expletives.
Made no sense to any of them.
October 14, 2024
Sadly bombs are rather too easy to acquire, assemble and plant.
October 14, 2024
Sir John,
I live not 500 yards from Kent College, where you were educated.
What an experience you have just related!
We all take it for granted that we can just pull out our mobile phones and tell our loved ones that we are all right. Thank you also for that tribute to Margaret – it must have been a privilege to work for her.
October 14, 2024
Indeed the best PM by far but it is a very low bar. Even she failed to cut the state back, cut taxes sufficiently, closed many excellent Grammar Schools, failed to get real a fair competition in Education, Energy, Banking, Transport, Housing, Healthcare, Universities⊠buried us further deeply into the EU and worse of all appointed the John Major (who failed his maths O level and most of the others) as Chancellor and then let him join the disastrous ERM. Against wise advice from JR and Sir Alan Walters. Still not even an apology from the pathetic John Major.
She even fell for climate alarmism initially.
October 14, 2024
For those of us who don’t listen to or look at BBC output, is this referring to a current story they are running, or are you referring back to the original coverage?
I don’t read any MSM either, so if there is some controversy raging about this, I’m not in the loop.
It must have been a formative event for those affected.
Reply Yes, a new radio account.
October 14, 2024
You’re probably lucky that the whole incident wasn’t slanted away from the IRA doing the bombing to an agrieved individual and it served you right. At the time the BBC was a little more objective but today with their penchant for re writing history, what can you expect
Listening to them reporting on the three amigos actively destroying our country, all is sweetness and light.
October 14, 2024
See mad militant strikes again with his flywheels… Again, like CCS, it’s been tried in the US and failed. Why will he not learn from people who have the experience.
October 14, 2024
What is preferable a flywheel (battery) that can just store rather little electricity (just a seconds of grid demand) minutes at vast expense per MWH. Or a fly wheel connected to a gas or coal powered turbine that can power the grid for as long as needed?
Surely this is fairly obvious even to the bonkers Ed Miliband?
October 14, 2024
I can believe your experience, but have no idea where the BBC’s experience came from and therefore its veracity. Were they in the hotel when it happened. To get somewhere near the trutb the police must have a massive file on the subject. Open it to historical scrutiny and we mighht get somewhere near the truth. It must have been a confusing situation for anyone involved.
October 14, 2024
Our host refers to a program in the BBCâs History Podcast series that was released on BBC Sounds last month and was broadcast on Radio 4 two or three Sundays ago (I forget the date).
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0023npx
It is free to listen to. I did so yesterday while doing the ironing, it is by turns fascinating and frightening. One canât hear the concluding section without feeling deeply for the victims, and admiring Mrs Thatcherâs indomitable spirit.
October 14, 2024
What a terrifying experience. It is all the more shocking for its unprecedence.
Needless to say, I am delighted you all survived. I dread to think what would have happened if you hadnât.
October 14, 2024
5 died 30 injured.
Also it seems another would be Trump assassin was arrested yesterday.
October 14, 2024
And he was released already on bail $5000.
October 14, 2024
Not really unprecedented though, as much appalling, death and injury causing & vastly destructive IRA bombing went on. Now we are appeasing Islamic terrorism with two tier policing. Cooper Balls even wants âExtreme misogyny will be treated as a form of extremism and hate crime. Not âMisandryâ it seems so two tier policing actually put into law then yet still denied. Will I be able to point out what a low proportion of women choose to read Physics, Further Maths, Computer science or Engineering anymore without being arrested?
October 14, 2024
What about the bomb murder of Airey Neave in 1979, driving at the Westminster carpark?
A clear intent of the likely future.
October 14, 2024
I am surprised by all these comments. For clarity, what is unprecedented is a terrorist attack of this kind – to kill the PM and as many of her colleagues as possible. That had never happened before nor since. I obviously was not suggesting no-one had never been killed by the IRA before!
As for the numbers killed, in my warm and respectful message to Sir John, when I said ‘you all’ I was referring to him and the PM etc ie the people running the country. I was not suggesting no-one had died in the Brighton bombing. Obviously I knew people died (I lived in Brighton at the time and remember the event well!). I am surprised by your nitpicking to a well-meaning comment.
October 14, 2024
I apologise as you consider my point nitpicking. I am however very surprised and did not intend to nitpick, simply to put the record straight regarding the escalation as many saw it at the Westminster IRA atrocity, when ‘peacekeeping ‘ was often condemned by those who encouraged such violent action. Brighton should have enabled similar activity against those known to be responsible.
October 14, 2024
Interesting what was the BBCâs take?
October 14, 2024
I see the Prime Minister will declare a temporary ban on asylum claims to âregain control and ensure safetyâ in the country. Great!
Oh wait, that’s the PM of Poland.
How can he do that whereas ours can’t?
Or am I not supposed to think like that?
October 14, 2024
Careful. You’ll get sent to the Establishment’s Tech Gulag for voicing unapproved thoughts.
October 14, 2024
Bill
Whilst ours it would appear has just signed up to provide temporary accommodation for those arriving for the next 8 years.
The smash the criminal gangs statement/promise appears to be forgotten, like so many other promises.
Appears our Ministers are still available to attend various sports events and concerts though, got to get their priorities right after all !!!!
October 14, 2024
Somewhat curious the BBC wouldn’t have spoken to all survivors of the event to check their facts.
October 14, 2024
Good blog today. Thanks. Always interesting to get real insight into events of this nature.
Glad that we saw MT and our esteemed host survive what must have been a terrifying experience
Thanks for your efforts
October 14, 2024
Because of the BBC’s bias I don’t bother listening to such things, as such I haven’t a clue what their slant was but I suppose I can guess. Essentially the BBC’s politics has made it an irrelevance to many .
Last night I briefly alighted on some BBC 2 historical drama called Malcolm or something, the casting made me laugh, and then I snitched over, the are a joke.
October 14, 2024
The BBC gives not one fig for historical accuracy. It is no longer a broadcaster of record. It sews forth propoganda to support its own chosen agenda.
October 14, 2024
Defective reporting from the BBC …… who’d a thunk it.
I wonder why they didn’t consult the people who were there, closest to the Prime Minister and her team, and who were themselves affected by the attack?
October 14, 2024
Thank you for your record of the Brighton bombing.
October 14, 2024
Mr. Redwood – you were Margaret Thatcherâs chief policy adviser in 1984. I believe you were Wokinghamâs MP from 1987 (to 2024), were you a SPAD at the time – or an MP for somewhere else. If you werenât an MP at the time of the bomb, how did you become her policy advisor?
Reply Head of Policy Unit was a senior civil service posting. She appointed me because I had set out how to privatise nationalised industries as part of an economic policy to control public spending. I had been unpaid Adviser to the Shadow Cabinet Treasury/ public spending committee. I chaired the CPS denationalisation committee, set out detailed proposals for the leading industries and then helped her set up the first big programme of sales.
October 14, 2024
reply to reply..thank you Sir John for interesting clarification.
Back in the days when Advisors actually knew a thing a two, eh!
October 14, 2024
It cannot have been at all pleasant, and deserves to be properly described. Any other organisation than the BBC would have taken steps to talk to all the survivors it could find, and should surely have spoken to you.
October 14, 2024
I avoid watching the BBC – they have added another tool to their list which requires us to be told what to think. Like some other quangos and organisations, the BBC now sets out to correct the past, and show it in a way that suits their agenda.
The BBC is a propaganda machine – it distorts the truth and hammers home socialist dogma and tries to make us believe we are not living in a world being destroyed by deceit and globalism.
October 14, 2024
+1
October 14, 2024
Speaking as someone who attended that conference, I couldnât have failed to be impressed by the calm, unruffled and reassuring way John Selwyn Gummer and the members of the government there handled the situation and made it totally clear that terrorism would never be allowed to undermine democracy.
October 14, 2024
What a terrible thing to have experienced so pleased you survived
Amazingly Robust & Strong Leadership shown by Mrs Thatcher & her team
October 14, 2024
I don’t watch or listen to the BBC but thank you for this diary entry.
R
October 14, 2024
Dear Mr Redwood
What might Mrs Thatcher of done to improve our productivity ?
Do you think she would leave the ECJ ?
Reply I have set out what we need to do to raise productivity. I hope she would listen to my advice now as she did then.
October 14, 2024
Every time I see a film clip of Margaret Thatcher it renews my conviction that she was a truly exceptional World leader.
Her forthright statement to the press after such a narrow escape was classic Thatcher. She makes every British party leader before or since look like pygmies, except for Churchill, of course. But I think she would have been at least as good as Winston was in wartime.
She was truly unique and looking at the current House Of Commons, we will certainly not see her like again, more’s the pity.
October 14, 2024
ChrisS, ++++++
October 14, 2024
Off Topic – from ‘GB News reporter:
In a bold move set to ignite a fresh debate across the European Union, Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk announced this weekend that Poland will temporarily suspend the right to claim asylum for migrants crossing the border from Belarus.
The decision, aimed at addressing what Tusk describes as a growing security threat, could have far-reaching implications for the EU’s approach to migration. Speaking at a rally of his Civic Platform party, Tusk declared, âI will demand recognition in Europe for this decision.â
His comments signal that the Polish leader intends to bring the issue to the forefront of discussions among EU leaders, many of whom are set to meet in Brussels this week.
Polandâs eastern neighbour, Belarus, has been accused of facilitating a “hybrid war” against the EU by funnelling migrants from the Middle East and Africa across the border. The tactic, aimed at destabilizing the EU, mirrors similar actions taken against Finland, which led Helsinki to close its border with Russia earlier this year.
Belarus is a close ally of Russia, and both countries have been accused of using migrants as pawns to sow discord within the EU – a move they have denied.
October 14, 2024
Fascinating blog.
I can’t believe this was 40 years ago!
Do you believe this experience guided her to sign the Anglo-Irish Agreement a year later, as Philip Johnston alludes to in the Telegraph?
October 14, 2024
And another blackout warning, just 6 days after the last one …. and a couple of weeks since the Eco Nutters closed down our last reliable coal-fired power station.
“Wind and solar are meeting just 10% of the gridâs electricity each as the âcapacity noticeâ warns a power demand spike in the late afternoon could overwhelm spare capacity.”
https://order-order.com/2024/10/14/uk-activates-blackout-prevention-system-as-wind-power-falters/
Well done to the Westminster Uni-Party and the Eco Nutters who infest the Establishment. It turns out that virtue-signalling to the world doesn’t keep the lights on.
October 14, 2024
The whole thing is unforgivable. Forever. What the Tebbits suffered alone is mind-boggling.
October 14, 2024
Thankfully you were physically uninjured. It must be a painful memory.
Terrorism is vile,as is any organisation that resorts to it, and those that encourage it and try to excuse it.
October 14, 2024
Why has your part been dumbed down.Any theories?
October 14, 2024
You were so lucky Sir John, as was Margaret Thatcher and others too considering the dangers of this awful cowardly and pernicious act.
I am convinced that it adversely affected MT and her health sadly. Violence has reared its ugly head many times since in what was once a safe country.
The BBC daily re-spins our history demeaning Britain as an often nasty colonial power in line with “their truth” agendas. Only yesterday The Tea Trail with Simon Reeves gave a one sided version of the Mau Mau uprising with a passing reference to white farmers being massacred. No mention of the other far more violent carnage in former Belgian Congo where events were not as successfully contained as in Kenya by the British. Not surprising history is being retold in bias guilt-trip language. What a nasty motley crew the BBC are dripping nonsense daily.