The son of Victor William Biffen, a tenant farmer, of Hill Farm, Otterhampton, Bridgwater, Somerset, and his wife Edith Annie, John Biffen was born in Bridgwater, Somerset, in 1930. He was educated firstly at Combwich village school followed by Dr. Morgan's Grammar School, Bridgwater. He then earned a scholarship to Jesus College, Cambridge where he graduated with a first class honours degree in History. From 1953 to 1960 he worked for Tube Investments Ltd.
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 that ' had been a brilliant exponent in Opposition of the economic policies in which I believed... But he proved rather less effective than I had hoped in the gruelling task of trying to control public expenditure.' In 1981, Biffen allowed Rupert Murdoch to buy The Times and The Sunday Times without reference to the Monopolies Commission. According to Woodrow Wyatt, who helped persuade Thatcher to ensure this, the Commission "almost certainly would have blocked it." As Leader of the House Biffen used the guillotine to cut short debate on the European Communities Act 1986. Edward Pearce has written that Biffen "was widely thought the best post-war floor leader". Biffen's image as an economic dry mellowed during his time in government and he made blunt public calls for greater moderation in government policy. In 1980 he warned the country to prepare for "three years of unparalleled austerity". In 1981 Biffen gave a speech to a fringe meeting at that year's Conservative Party Conference in which he argued the party was "within touching distance of the débâcles of 1906 and 1945." He further claimed that far from cutting public spending, the government had increased it by two per cent since 1979 and that the government was part of an all-party consensus in favour of the welfare state and public spending: "We are all social democrats now", Biffen concluded in his speech. On 9 February 1986 he said that Toryism was "not a raucous political faction" and after the Conservative Party's losses in the 1986 local government elections, and poor performances in the two parliamentary by-elections held simultaneously, Biffen was interviewed on Weekend World by Brian Walden on 11 May as the government's spokesman. He called the results "Black Thursday", said the Conservatives needed to fight the next general election on a "balanced ticket" and that "no one seriously supposes that the Prime Minister would be Prime Minister throughout 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 likened Thatcher's governing style to that of a "Stalinist regime".
Biffen married Sarah Wood in 1979. He had one stepson, Nicholas Wood, a correspondent with The New York Times and International Herald Tribune, and a stepdaughter, Lucy.
Political views
Despite his right-wing views on economic policy, he was very much to the left of Margaret Thatcher on social policy: he completely opposed capital punishment, and was very supportive of equal gay rights, though agreed with Powell on immigration. Biffen also opposed the tightening of laws restricting abortion, voting, in 1990, to preserve the limit at 28 weeks. Brian Walden noted that Biffen was the "most honest" politician he had interviewed.
Death
He died on 14 August 2007, aged 76, after a short illness, having suffered from kidney failure for many years. He was survived by his wife, stepson and stepdaughter.
