The "Tebbit test" is a phrase from a lost era, like "Iraqi WMD". Its inventor was Norman Tebbit, the Conservative politician who in 1990 grumbled to the Los Angeles Times: "A large proportion of Britain's Asian population fail to pass the cricket test. Which side do they cheer for? It's an interesting test. Are you still harking back to where you came from or where you are?"

The "cricket test" passed into the language as the "Tebbit test": a bizarre method for testing national loyalty. Tebbit reheated it after British suicide bombers of Pakistani origin struck London in July 2005.