"Which Press Secretary to Margaret Thatcher was described by John Biffen MP as "" a rough-spoken Yorkshire Rasputin""?"
John Biffen the entire period of the next Parliament". This alienated him from Thatcher and resulted in his being dropped from the Cabinet after the 1987 General Election. His dismissal was no surprise, in that Thatcher's press secretary Bernard Ingham had already famously called him a "semi-detached" member of the Cabinet. Thatcher in her memoirs described Biffen's desire for a balanced ticket as "foolish" and "a recipe for paralysis." In the month after his sacking Biffen criticised Thatcher's government as a "Stalinist regime". On the backbenches Biffen voted against the Local Government Finance Act 1988 which introduced the Community Charge (the poll
John Biffen division in 1972 against his own party. Biffen championed tight fiscal policy and opposed state intervention in economic management. This stance barred his way to advancement under Edward Heath, but contributed to his promotion under Margaret Thatcher. He served in Thatcher's government in the successive positions of Chief Secretary to the Treasury, Secretary of State for Trade, and as Leader of the House of Commons. In the 1960s Biffen joined the Mont Pelerin Society. Thatcher writes in "The Downing Street Years" (1993) that '(Biffen) had been a brilliant exponent in Opposition of the economic policies in which I believed... But