Nigel Lawson, Prime Minister and Journalist, 1932-2023
Lord Lawson of Bravy, died at the age of 91was one of the most important and longest-serving British prime ministers of the 20th century, playing a pivotal role in Margaret Thatcher’s free market revolution.
Nigel Lawson, revered by the Tory right and an inspiration to current Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, pushed a vigorous privatization program in the late 1980s and presided over sweeping tax cuts.
One of the most intelligent prime ministers of all time, Lawson played a key role in the successful recovery of the UK economy from the depths of the recession of the early 1980s.
Ultimately, though, his nearly six-and-a-half years at 11 Downing Street (the second-longest tenure of any prime minister in the 20th century) ended in a familiar and disappointing cycle of booms and busts.
The ill-fated “Lawson boom” fueled by two big tax cuts in the late 1980s did little to tarnish his reputation among contemporary Conservative leaders. Snack had a Lawson portrait hanging above his desk during his premiership.
If anything, Lawson’s position against the Tory right has grown in the last decade of his life. He championed Brexit and was a major skeptic of man-made climate change.
Coming from a wealthy Jewish background, Lawson earned his first PPE qualification at Oxford and was one of many smart Oxbridge graduates recruited to the Financial Times by then-editor Sir Gordon Newton in the 1950s.
In four years, I worked my way up from Junior Feature Writer to Industry Reporter, Oil Correspondent, Feature Editor, and finally Chief Rex Columnist.
In 1960 he left the new Sunday Telegraph to join the City as editor, a job he continued until October 1963 when he went to the Conservative Research Service to help the party fight in the next election. . Shortly after the 1964 poll, he succeeded Iin Macleod as editor of The Spectator.
He became a Member of Parliament in 1974, abandoning his declared ambition to become editor of the Financial Times. As early as 1981, he had personally urged then-Prime Minister Jeffrey Howe to join his European exchange rate mechanism, but was rejected by Howe and Thatcher. These arguments became even more bitter in the late decade.
But first, in the interlude in September 1981, when Lawson entered the Cabinet as Secretary of Energy and gave a brief briefing to grasp the privatization program involving the North Sea oil, British gas and power industries. bottom.
He was also involved in pre-planning the miners’ strike that eventually took place in 1984. This was after extensive precautionary build-up of coal stockpiles at power plants.
Early privatization issues proved difficult to deal with. Amersham International had a surprisingly low price in 1981, and when Lawson decided to sell Britoil in a tender offer in 1982, the issue was severely undervalued to avoid risking a large premium. But the offers of British Telecom and British Gas (the latter after Lawson left the energy sector) set a pattern of strong public appeal.
Lawson was surprised to be appointed prime minister after the 1983 election, but seized his chance with a radical budget bill in March 1984. A sweeping reform of the corporate tax, including the abolition of the stock deduction and investment deduction, set the tone for his premiership.
He presided over the massive ‘big bang’ liberalization of the City of London in October 1986, boasting of eliminating taxes in each of its six budgets. Other significant changes in later years included the end of deductions for life insurance and the introduction of personal equity his plans. In 1988, he lowered the top rate of income tax to 40%.
But he was thwarted by Thatcher, who tried to cut interest rate relief on mortgages, which may have softened the ensuing explosion in house prices.
But starting around 1986, Lawson began making serious mistakes. The British pound fell after the drop in oil prices, making him increasingly frustrated with Thatcher’s rejection of the ERM, which he believed would give more credibility to the government’s anti-inflationary policies.
He decided to peg the pound at 3 Deutschmarks from March 1987, but Lawson was unable to directly advise the increasingly conflicted Prime Minister and her special adviser, Sir Alan Walters. There was no. Interest rates at the time were too low to maintain currency stability. Especially after the stock market crash of 1987, when interest rates were cut further to avoid the feared but fantastic slump.
The housing market boomed and inflation picked up again. Lawson later accused official statistics of initially hiding the size of the boom, but Thatcher argued that the policy of hiding the D mark caused subsequent inflation.
At well over 1,000 pages, Lawson’s monumental memoir, published in 1992, describes in great detail the internal divisions of European government during this period. Relations with Thatcher became increasingly strained. In particular, this was due to his aggressive personal stance against the poll tax.
He was forced to remove the sterling cap in March 1988, and the pound rose in reverse for some time, throwing exchange rates and monetary policy into turmoil in the midst of a credit-driven domestic economic boom. Lawson later admitted that his May 1988 temporary reduction in base rate to 7.5% “due to considerable damage to my reputation thereafter.”
The breaking point was reached in October 1989. Inflation rose, interest rates reached his 15% on the eve of the Conservative Party Congress, and the European issue split the cabinet. The stated resignation issue was Walters’ continued role in undermining Lawson’s powerful pound policy, but Europe had become a running pain.
Lawson’s resignation marked the end of his political career on the front lines. He resigned from Parliament before his 1992 election and accepted the title of Baron Lawson of Blaby.
He has served on the boards of several companies, including Barclays. He was mentioned as an outside candidate for Governor of the Bank of England in 1993, but his substantive job eluded him.
However, Lawson became a controversial figure later in life when he chaired the Global Warming Policy Foundation, a lobby group skeptical of man-made climate change. “Extreme weather events are happening all the time,” he said in 2017.
He has also become a staunch supporter of Brexit. This is a case that was sometimes taken from his home in France. His embrace of Euroskepticism only tarnished his reputation with the Tory right.
Lawson had six children, including Nigella Lawson, a food writer and television cook, and Dominic Lawson, a journalist.
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Lord Lawson of Bravy, died at the age of 91was one of the most important and longest-serving British prime ministers of the 20th century, playing a pivotal role in Margaret Thatcher’s free market revolution.Nigel Lawson, revered by the Tory right and an inspiration to current Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, pushed a vigorous privatization program in the late 1980s and presided over sweeping tax cuts. One of the most intelligent prime ministers of all time, Lawson played a key role in the successful recovery of the UK economy from the depths of the recession of the early 1980s.Ultimately, though, his nearly six-and-a-half years at 11 Downing Street (the second-longest tenure of any prime minister in the 20th century) ended in a familiar and disappointing cycle of booms and busts.The ill-fated “Lawson boom” fueled by two big tax cuts in the late 1980s did little to tarnish his reputation among contemporary Conservative leaders. Snack had a Lawson portrait hanging above his desk during his premiership.If anything, Lawson’s position against the Tory right has grown in the last decade of his life. He championed Brexit and was a major skeptic of man-made climate change.Coming from a wealthy Jewish background, Lawson earned his first PPE qualification at Oxford and was one of many smart Oxbridge graduates recruited to the Financial Times by then-editor Sir Gordon Newton in the 1950s. In four years, I worked my way up from Junior Feature Writer to Industry Reporter, Oil Correspondent, Feature Editor, and finally Chief Rex Columnist.In 1960 he left the new Sunday Telegraph to join the City as editor, a job he continued until October 1963 when he went to the Conservative Research Service to help the party fight in the next election. . Shortly after the 1964 poll, he succeeded Iin Macleod as editor of The Spectator.He became a Member of Parliament in 1974, abandoning his declared ambition to become editor of the Financial Times. As early as 1981, he had personally urged then-Prime Minister Jeffrey Howe to join his European exchange rate mechanism, but was rejected by Howe and Thatcher. These arguments became even more bitter in the late decade.But first, in the interlude in September 1981, when Lawson entered the Cabinet as Secretary of Energy and gave a brief briefing to grasp the privatization program involving the North Sea oil, British gas and power industries. bottom.He was also involved in pre-planning the miners’ strike that eventually took place in 1984. This was after extensive precautionary build-up of coal stockpiles at power plants.Early privatization issues proved difficult to deal with. Amersham International had a surprisingly low price in 1981, and when Lawson decided to sell Britoil in a tender offer in 1982, the issue was severely undervalued to avoid risking a large premium. But the offers of British Telecom and British Gas (the latter after Lawson left the energy sector) set a pattern of strong public appeal.
Nigel Lawson with wife Therese before presenting the budget in the House © PA Archive/PA Images
Lawson was surprised to be appointed prime minister after the 1983 election, but seized his chance with a radical budget bill in March 1984. A sweeping reform of the corporate tax, including the abolition of the stock deduction and investment deduction, set the tone for his premiership. He presided over the massive ‘big bang’ liberalization of the City of London in October 1986, boasting of eliminating taxes in each of its six budgets. Other significant changes in later years included the end of deductions for life insurance and the introduction of personal equity his plans. In 1988, he lowered the top rate of income tax to 40%.But he was thwarted by Thatcher, who tried to cut interest rate relief on mortgages, which may have softened the ensuing explosion in house prices. But starting around 1986, Lawson began making serious mistakes. The British pound fell after the drop in oil prices, making him increasingly frustrated with Thatcher’s rejection of the ERM, which he believed would give more credibility to the government’s anti-inflationary policies. He decided to peg the pound at 3 Deutschmarks from March 1987, but Lawson was unable to directly advise the increasingly conflicted Prime Minister and her special adviser, Sir Alan Walters. There was no. Interest rates at the time were too low to maintain currency stability. Especially after the stock market crash of 1987, when interest rates were cut further to avoid the feared but fantastic slump. The housing market boomed and inflation picked up again. Lawson later accused official statistics of initially hiding the size of the boom, but Thatcher argued that the policy of hiding the D mark caused subsequent inflation.
Nigel Lawson became a controversial figure in his later years, becoming a climate change skeptic and a Euroskeptic © PA
At well over 1,000 pages, Lawson’s monumental memoir, published in 1992, describes in great detail the internal divisions of European government during this period. Relations with Thatcher became increasingly strained. In particular, this was due to his aggressive personal stance against the poll tax.He was forced to remove the sterling cap in March 1988, and the pound rose in reverse for some time, throwing exchange rates and monetary policy into turmoil in the midst of a credit-driven domestic economic boom. Lawson later admitted that his May 1988 temporary reduction in base rate to 7.5% “due to considerable damage to my reputation thereafter.”The breaking point was reached in October 1989. Inflation rose, interest rates reached his 15% on the eve of the Conservative Party Congress, and the European issue split the cabinet. The stated resignation issue was Walters’ continued role in undermining Lawson’s powerful pound policy, but Europe had become a running pain.Lawson’s resignation marked the end of his political career on the front lines. He resigned from Parliament before his 1992 election and accepted the title of Baron Lawson of Blaby.He has served on the boards of several companies, including Barclays. He was mentioned as an outside candidate for Governor of the Bank of England in 1993, but his substantive job eluded him.However, Lawson became a controversial figure later in life when he chaired the Global Warming Policy Foundation, a lobby group skeptical of man-made climate change. “Extreme weather events are happening all the time,” he said in 2017.He has also become a staunch supporter of Brexit. This is a case that was sometimes taken from his home in France. His embrace of Euroskepticism only tarnished his reputation with the Tory right.Lawson had six children, including Nigella Lawson, a food writer and television cook, and Dominic Lawson, a journalist.
https://www.ft.com/content/b4f4cd59-97b1-4bca-8ea4-b11f0256db65 Nigel Lawson, Prime Minister and Journalist, 1932-2023