A slight error

The Daily Mail, understandably, is celebrating Lord Tebbit's 80th birthday by recounting his various achievements and laying some emphasis on the fact that, but for the IRA's Brighton bomb he might well have become the Prime Minister after Thatcher.

However, one cannot help feeling that the Daily Wail has been misreading history:

Had history taken a different turn, this would still be a proper country. If the IRA hadn’t blown up the Grand Hotel in Brighton, crippling Tebbit’s wife Margaret, he would have succeeded the Iron Lady and Britain today would be a proud, independent nation, not a two-bob Ruritanian province of Brussels

Really? Given the Conservative Party's history in that field, I think not. But, perhaps, he would have realized the wrongness of his party's behaviour before retirement.

Happy birthday, Lord Tebbit, anyway.