Nigel Lawson

Nigel Lawson, Baron Lawson of Blaby, PC (born 11 March 1932), is a British Conservative politician and journalist who was Chancellor of the Exchequer between June 1983 and October 1989. His tenure in that office was longer than that of any of his predecessors since David Lloyd George (1908 to 1915), though it was surpassed by Gordon Brown in September 2003.

Lawson is the father of journalist and food writer Nigella Lawson, the late Thomasina Lawson, Horatia Lawson, Dominic Lawson, the former editor of The Sunday Telegraph, Tom Lawson, housemaster of Chernocke House at Winchester College, and Emily Lawson, a TV producer.

Early life

He was born in Hampstead in 1932, the son of Ralph Lawson, a tea merchant, and Joan Elisabeth Davis, the daughter of a stockbroker. His grandfather Gustav Leibson, a Jewish immigrant from Mitau (now Jelgava in Latvia) changed his name from Leibson to Lawson after becoming a British Citizen in 1911.^[2] After studying at Westminster and Christ Church, Oxford, where he gained a first class honours degree in Philosophy, Politics and Economics,^{[3][4][5][6][7]} he carried out his National Service in the Royal Navy - during which time he commanded a small torpedo boat. Lawson began his career as a financial journalist and progressed to the positions of city editor of The Sunday Telegraph in 1961 and editor of The Spectator (1966–1970) before becoming Member of Parliament for Blaby in Leicestershire in February 1974 (a position he held until retiring at the 1992 General Election). While in opposition, he co-ordinated tactics with government backbenchers Jeff Rooker and Audrey Wise to secure legislation providing for the automatic indexation of tax thresholds to prevent the tax burden being increased by inflation (typically in excess of 10% per annum during that parliament).

In government

On the election of Margaret Thatcher's government, Lawson was appointed to the position of Financial Secretary to the Treasury. Although this is the fourth-ranking political position in the British Treasury, Lawson's energy in office was reflected in such measures as the ending of unofficial state controls on mortgage lending, the abolition of exchange controls in October 1979 and the publication of the Medium Term Financial Strategy. This document set the course for both the monetary and fiscal sides of the new government's economic policy, though the extent to which the subsequent trajectory of policy and outcome matched that projected is still a matter for debate.

In the cabinet reshuffle of September 1981, Lawson was promoted to the position of Secretary of State for Energy. In this role his most significant action was to prepare for what he saw as an inevitable full-scale strike in the coal industry (then state-owned since nationalisation by the post-war government of Clement Attlee) over the closure of pits whose operation accounted for the coal industry's business losses and consequent requirement for state subsidy.

Lawson was a key proponent of the Thatcher Government's privatisation policy. During his tenure at the Department of Energy he set the course for the later privatizations of the gas and electricity industries and on his return to the Treasury he worked closely with the Department of Trade and Industry in privatizing British Airways, British Telecom, and British Gas.

After the government's re-election in 1983, Lawson was appointed Chancellor of the Exchequer in succession to Sir Geoffrey Howe. The early years of Lawson's chancellorship were associated with tax reform. The 1984 budget reformed corporate taxes by a combination of reduced rates and reduced allowances. The 1985 budget continued the trend of shifting from direct to indirect taxes by reducing National Insurance contributions for the lower-paid while extending the base of value-added tax.

During these two years Lawson's public image remained low-key, but from the 1986 budget (in which he resumed the reduction of the standard rate of personal Income Tax from the 30% rate to which it had been lowered in Sir Geoffrey Howe's 1979 budget), his stock rose as unemployment began to fall from the middle of 1986 (employment growth having resumed over three years earlier).

The trajectory taken by the UK economy from this point on is typically described as 'The Lawson Boom' by analogy with the phrase 'The Barber Boom' which describes an earlier period of rapid expansion under the tenure as chancellor of Anthony Barber in the Conservative government of Sir Edward Heath (1970 to 1974). Critics of Lawson assert that a combination of the abandonment of monetarism, the adoption of a de facto exchange-rate target of 3 deutschmarks to the pound (ruling out interest-rate rises), and excessive fiscal laxity (in particular the 1988 budget) unleashed an inflationary spiral.

Lawson, in his own defence, attributes the boom largely to the effects of various measures of financial deregulation. Insofar as Lawson acknowledges policy errors, he attributes them to a failure to raise interest rates during 1986 and considers that had Margaret Thatcher not vetoed the UK joining the European Exchange Rate Mechanism in November 1985 it might have been possible to adjust to these beneficial changes in the arena of microeconomics with less macroeconomic turbulence. Lawson also ascribes the difficulty of conducting monetary policy to Goodhart's Law.

Lawson opposed the introduction of the Community Charge (the poll tax) as a replacement for the previous rating system for the local financing element of local government revenue. His dissent was confined to deliberations within the Cabinet, where he found few allies and where he was overruled by the Prime Minister and by the ministerial team of the responsible department (Department of the Environment).

The issue of exchange-rate mechanism membership continued to fester between Lawson and Thatcher and was exacerbated by the re-employment by Thatcher of Alan Walters as personal economic adviser. Lawson's conduct of policy had become a struggle to maintain credibility once the August 1988 trade deficit revealed the strength of the expansion of domestic demand. As orthodox monetarists, Lawson and Thatcher agreed to a steady rise in interest rates to restrain demand, but this had the effect of inflating the headline inflation figure.

Resignation

After a further year in office in these circumstances Lawson felt that public articulation of differences between an exchange-rate monetarist, as he had become, and the views of Walters (who continued to favour a floating exchange rate) were making his job impossible and he resigned.^[8] He was succeeded in the office of Chancellor by John Major.

Retirement

After retiring from front-bench politics, Lawson decided, on his doctor's advice, to tackle his weight problem. He is 5 foot 10 inches (178 cm) tall. He lost five stone (70 pounds, 30 kg) from 238 pounds (108 kg) to 168 pounds (76 kilograms) - (BMI 34 to 24) in a matter of a few months, dramatically changing his appearance, and went on to publish the best-selling "The Nigel Lawson Diet Book". On 1 July 1992 he was created a life peer as Baron Lawson of Blaby, of Newnham in the County of Northamptonshire.

In 1996, Lawson appeared on the BBC topical quiz show Have I Got News For You and, as a former Chancellor (regarded as one of the "big four" Government positions) became something of a coup as the guest who had previously held the highest political office. He was, however, happy to go on the show and take a mild amount of ribbing from the regulars as he was plugging his diet book at the time.

He serves on the advisory board of the conservative magazine Standpoint.

Lawson has been married twice:

• Vanessa Salmon (lived: 1936-1985), whose family founded the Lyons Corner House chain, (married to Lawson: 1955–1980); (one son Dominic and three daughters Thomasina, Nigella and Horatia);
• Thérèse Maclear (married to Lawson: 1980 – to present); (one son Tom and one daughter Emily).

Corporate roles

• 2007: Chairman of Central European Trust (CET)^[9]

• 2007: Chairman of Oxford Investment Partners^[10]

• Non Executive Director N M Rothschild & Sons^[11]

Global warming debate

In 2004, along with six others, Lawson wrote a letter to The Times criticising the Kyoto Protocol and claiming that there were substantial scientific uncertainties surrounding climate change.^[12] In 2005, the House of Lords Economics Affairs Select Committee, with Lawson as a member, undertook an inquiry into climate change. In their report, the Committee recommend the HM Treasury take a more active role in climate policy. The objectivity of the IPCC process is questioned, and changes are suggested in the UK's contribution to future international climate change negotiations.^[13] The report cites a mismatch between the economic costs and benefits of climate policy, and also criticises the greenhouse gas emission reduction targets set in the Kyoto Protocol. In response to the report, Michael Grubb, Chief Economist of the Carbon Trust, wrote an article in Prospect magazine, defending the Kyoto Protocol and describing the committee's report as being "strikingly inconsistent".^[14] Lawson responded to Grubb's article, describing it as an example of the "intellectual bankruptcy of the [...] climate change establishment". Lawson also said that Kyoto's approach was "wrong-headed" and called on the IPCC to be "shut down".^[15]

At about the same time of the release of the House of Lords report, the British government launched the Stern Review, an inquiry undertaken by the HM Treasury and headed by Sir Nicholas Stern. According to the Stern Review, published in 2006, the potential costs of climate change far exceed the costs of a programme to stabilise the climate. Lawson's lecture to the Centre for Policy Studies think-tank, published 1 November 2006 ^[16] criticises the Stern Review and proposed what is described as a rational approach, advocating adaptation to changes in global climate, rather than attempting mitigation, i.e., reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Lawson also contributed to the 2007 documentary film The Great Global Warming Swindle.

In 2008, Lawson published a book expanding on his 2006 lecture to the Centre for Policy Studies, An Appeal to Reason: A Cool Look at Global Warming.^[17] He argues the case that, although global warming is happening and will have negative consequences, the impact of these changes will be relatively moderate rather than apocalyptic. He criticises those "alarmist" politicians and scientists who predict catastrophe unless urgent action is taken. The book has, in its turn, been criticised by several climatologists.^[18][19] Richard Lambert wrote in the Guardian:

In July 2008 controversy was again incited when the conservative magazine Standpoint published a transcript of a double interview with Lawson and Tory Policy Chief Oliver Letwin, in which Lawson described Letwin's views on global warming as "pie in the sky" and called on him and the Tory frontbench to "get real".^[21]

Lawson's son Dominic Lawson is also a climate change sceptic, taking a similar viewpoint as his father in his columns in the Independent on Sunday.^[22][23] The brother of Lawson's daughter in law, Christopher Monckton, is also a critic of the scientific consensus on climate change.

In the media

Lawson was interviewed about the rise of Thatcherism for the 2006 BBC TV documentary series Tory! Tory! Tory!.

Bibliography

• An Appeal to Reason: A Cool Look at Global Warming
• 'Thatcherism in Practice: A Progress Report
• The Retreat of the State
• The View from No.11: Memoirs of a Tory Radical
• The Nigel Lawson Diet Book
• The Power Game: An Examination of Decision Making in Government
• Conservatism Today: Four Personal Points of View By Robert Blake, Peregrine Worsthorne, David Howell and Nigel Lawson
• State of the Market (Occasional Papers S.)

References

External links

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Nigel Lawson

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