Tapsell worked as a personal assistant to Sir
Anthony Eden during the 1955 general election. Tapsell was a long-time supporter of
Keynesian economics, and opposed the monetarist policies of
Margaret Thatcher's governments. In 1981, he voted against Sir
Geoffrey Howe's Budget – becoming, as Peter Oborne noted, "the first Conservative since
Harold Macmillan in the 1930s to vote against a Budget, a brave move which turned him into an internal political exile." Tapsell was known for his forthright views and was sometimes controversial. In May 2001, he made headlines during the UK general election campaign when comparing German Chancellor
Gerhard Schröder's vision of Europe to
Adolf Hitler's: "We may not have studied Hitler's
Mein Kampf in time but, by heaven, there is no excuse for us not studying the Schröder plan now". Tapsell was opposed to the wars in
Iraq and
Afghanistan, and called for
Tony Blair to be impeached for misleading parliament over the invasion of Iraq. Tapsell was strongly
Eurosceptic. He was in favour of Britain leaving the EU. He felt that of all his political actions the one of which he was most proud was his opposition to the Maastricht Treaty, "because everything that has gone wrong in Britain dates from us joining the European Union. One of the reasons the House of Commons has lost its prestige is because people feel we are no longer in charge of a country. So much of the legislation that affects them is imposed by Brussels."
Guardian sketch writer
Simon Hoggart frequently lavished praise on Tapsell, describing him as "the grandest of grandees" (July 2008) and that when in the Chamber, Tapsell rises "to speak, or rather to intone superbly" (January 2008). In June 2011, Tapsell was appointed as a
Privy Counsellor in the
2011 Birthday Honours, and he was sworn into the Council the following month. Tapsell was reported as being one of the Conservative MPs to have spoken critically of Party Co-Chairman
Sayeeda Warsi at a meeting of the
1922 Committee, following Warsi's handling of
Roger Helmer MEP's defection to
UKIP. In March 2014, he announced his intention to step down from Parliament at the 2015 general election, and also gave an interview where he was highly critical of former Prime Minister
Margaret Thatcher, under whom he briefly served as a spokesman on economic policy when the Conservatives were still in Opposition in the 1970s. ==Personal life==