Nigel Lawson dies: The life of Thatcher’s chancellor, from political clashes to the Big Boom and climate scepticism

Published

2 years ago

April 3, 2023

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Nigel Lawson, chancellor to Margaret Thatcher, has died at the age of 91.

He leaves behind five of his six children, including TV chef Nigella Lawson and journalist Dominic Lawson. One of his daughters, Thomasina, died aged 32.

Born in Hampstead, northwest London, on 11 March 1932, the son of the owner of a tea-trading firm climbed his way to the top of British politics after an education at Westminster School and Oxford University.

His political life started at Oxford, where he did Philosophy, Politics and Economics – like many other politicians – but he began his working life carrying out national service as a Royal Navy officer.

Lord Lawson, as he was to become, then became a financial journalist, writing for the Financial Times and The Sunday Telegraph, before becoming editor of The Spectator.

After 14 years as a journalist, in 1970 he stood to become an MP, unsuccessfully, for the Eton and Slough seat before eventually winning the now-defunct Leicestershire constituency of Blaby four years later.

When the Conservatives won the election in 1979 under Mrs Thatcher, she made him financial secretary to the Treasury and her policies at the time clearly reflected his influence.

She then promoted him to energy secretary, where he helped prepare for what he called “inevitable” full-scale strikes in the coal industry, which had been nationalised by Labour prime minister Clement Attlee.

But it was as chancellor that Mr Lawson ensured he would go down in the history books.

Tax cuts, the Big Bang and the Lawson Boom

The second longest-serving chancellor after Gordon Brown, Mr Lawson was key to Mrs Thatcher’s economic policies – and success.

After getting the job in 1983 he pushed ahead with tax reforms, reducing corporation taxes and lowering National Insurance contributions for the lower-paid, while extending the VAT base.

From 1986, his public image grew after he reduced the standard rate of personal income tax and unemployment began to fall.

He also managed to turn around government finances from a budget deficit of £10.5bn in 1983 to a surplus of £3.9bn in 1988 and £4.1bn in 1989.

However, the government’s current account deficit increased from below 1% GDP to almost 5% in three years.

Mr Lawson managed to honour his promise to bring taxation rates down, with the basic rate going from 30% to 25%, and the top tax rate from 60% to 40%. He also removed other higher rates so nobody paid above 40% in personal tax.

One of his major triumphs was the Big Bang of 1986, which saw the City’s financial markets deregulated and London strengthened as a financial capital – but in 2010, he admitted the “unintended consequence” of that was the 2007 financial crisis.

He even had a period of economic growth named after him. The Lawson Boom saw the UK economy on the up after 1986, with unemployment halved.

However, that led to a rise in inflation to 8% in 1988 and interest rates doubled to 15% within 18 months, with critics accusing Mr Lawson of unleashing an inflationary spiral due to his policies.

In his 1992 memoir, written just after he stepped down as an MP, Mr Lawson admitted the 1987 manifesto was not properly thought through and if it had not been for the economic growth, the manifesto would have been a disaster.

“As it was, it was merely an embarrassment,” he said.

Clashes with Thatcher

While he was Mrs Thatcher’s right-hand man, the pair did not always see eye-to-eye and he was overruled in cabinet when he opposed introducing a poll tax to replace local government financing.

There was also the now-infamous 1988 budget, which took nearly two hours for Mr Lawson to announce as there were continuous interruptions and protests from opposition parties.

The then-depute leader of the Scottish National Party, Alex Salmond, was suspended from the Commons for his constant interruptions and MPs voted against amending the law bill.

Mrs Thatcher and her chancellor also clashed over the exchange-rate mechanism (ERM) membership in 1985, with Mr Lawson – ironically, as he became a Brexiteer – believing membership was the only way forward to help convince the markets the UK was committed to fiscal discipline.

It proved to be one of Mrs Thatcher’s most tumultuous meetings with her senior ministers as she single-handedly faced them down after Mr Lawson had spoken separately to all of the ministers present to persuade them to ambush her.

Mr Lawson later said he had considered resigning after she said their arguments did not convince her, but he was dissuaded by colleagues. Mrs Thatcher was persuaded to sign up to the ERM five years later by Mr Lawson’s successor, John Major.

The prime minister’s relationship with her chancellor took another dive when she re-employed economist Alan Walters in 1989 as her personal economic adviser, with Mr Lawson at loggerheads with them over the ERM.

He threatened to resign if Mrs Thatcher did not sack Mr Walters over his support of the ERM. Mrs Thatcher wrote in a private memo that was “absurd” and urged him to rethink – and Mr Lawson quit.

National Archive files released in 2017 revealed the extent Mr Walters was briefing against Mr Lawson, including telling Mrs Thatcher that Mr Lawson’s position over the ERM was having a devastating impact on the UK economy.

Mr Lawson’s resignation was seen as the beginning of the end for Mrs Thatcher, with her foreign secretary Geoffrey Howe resigning shortly after – and Mrs Thatcher resigned in 1990 after Michael Heseltine decided to challenge her for leadership of the Conservative Party.

Post-Thatcher

Mr Lawson remained as a backbencher until 1992, when he was elevated to the House of Lords with a life peerage, and was known as Lord Lawson of Blaby.

Months after he stood down as an MP, he lost five stone after his doctor told him his knee problems would not stop if he continued to carry the weight.

It dramatically changed his appearance and he published The Nigel Lawson Diet Book, which became a best seller.

Previously 17 stone and 5ft 9, he had been an easy target for political cartoonists – although it did not bother him – and he admitted after losing weight: “I was certainly a fat man.

“It came up gradually, and by the time I was chancellor, certainly, that was the thing the cartoonists seized on; that was part of the image – no doubt about it.”

Mr Lawson used his time away from the Commons to occasionally appear as a guest on daughter Nigella’s cookery shows.

He also served on the advisory board of the Conservative magazine Standpoint.

Two wives, six children

Mr Lawson was married twice. His first wife was former ballet dancer Vanessa Salmon with whom he had Dominic (the journalist), Thomasina (who died of breast cancer aged 32), Nigella (the TV chef) and Horatia. After they divorced, Ms Salmon died of liver cancer aged 48.

His second wife was former Commons researcher Therese Maclear, who he married the same year he divorced Ms Salmon. They had son Tom and daughter Emily before they divorced in 2008.

In 2011, he found love again at the age of 79 with 42-year-old Dr Tina Jennings, a former banker who was previously married to New Zealand’s richest man.

However, they split up two years later, with Dr Jennings reportedly finding it hard to go regularly to France, which Mr Lawson did every weekend.

Controversial support for Brexit

In 2009, Mr Lawson was caught up in the parliamentary expenses scandal after he was accused of claiming £16,000 in overnight allowances by registering his farmhouse in Gascony, southwest France, as his main residence.

In 2013, the former chancellor pushed for the UK to leave the EU and ahead of the 2016 referendum he was appointed chairman of the Vote Leave campaign.

At the time, he was living in France and in 2018 started to apply for his official French residency card.

His critics accused him of hypocrisy for living in France yet campaigning for the UK to leave the EU, but he said he did not believe the issue of Britons living in other EU countries was a big problem in the Brexit negotiations.

In 2019, Mr Lawson returned to live in the UK after putting his Gascony mansion on the market. He said it was to be close to his children and grandchildren.

Climate scepticism

In opposition to Mrs Thatcher, who helped put climate change on the agenda, Mr Lawson was very sceptical of the concept and denied global warming is taking place to such a large degree as many scientists say.

He wrote a letter in 2004 criticising the Kyoto Protocol and claiming there were substantial scientific uncertainties.

As a member of the House of Lords Economics Affairs Select Committee, he carried out an inquiry into climate change in 2005 and recommended the Treasury take a more active role in climate policy.

The report said there was a mismatch between the economic costs and the benefits of climate policy – which kicked off a tussle between him and Michael Grubb, chief economist of the Carbon Trust.

He contributed to the 2007 documentary The Great Global Warming Swindle and in 2008 published a book called An Appeal to Reason: A Cool Look at Global Warming.

In the book, he admitted global warming is happening and will have negative consequences but said the impact of those changes will be moderate rather than apocalyptic, and criticised “alarmist” politicians and scientists.

He was heavily denounced by climate scientists and the UK’s chief scientific adviser at the time, Sir John Beddington, who privately told Mr Lawson he had “incorrect” and “misleading” claims in the book.

But that did not stop him airing his views, and in 2009 he launched a new thinktank called The Global Warming Policy Foundation.

His journalist son, Dominic Lawson, is also a climate change sceptic.

UK

Man holding Palestinian flag seen climbing up Palace of Westminster

Published

17 hours ago

March 8, 2025

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Man holding Palestinian flag seen climbing up Palace of Westminster

Police have been called to the Palace of Westminster after a man was seen climbing up the tower which houses Big Ben.

Video on social media shows a barefoot man stood on a ledge several metres up the Elizabeth Tower holding a Palestinian flag.

Police said they were called to the scene at 7:24am this morning.

A fire engine has now raised a cherry picker to the same height as the man’s position on the tower.

Three people standing on the crane are engaging with the man who is several feet away.

The protester has been sharing videos on Instagram from his viewpoint on the tower as a woman in plain clothes speaks to him from the cherry picker.

The woman says: “At some point you have to come down, how long do you think you are going to be there, how long do you think you are able to be there?”

Her voice is then barely audible as she appears to say “your message was to say ‘Free Palestine'” before she encourages to him come down.

A large red stain which appears to be blood can be seen on the side of the tower around the protester’s feet.

A Met Police spokesperson said: “At 7.24am on Saturday March 8 officers were alerted to a man climbing up the Elizabeth Tower at the Houses of Parliament.

“Officers are at the scene working to bring the incident to a safe conclusion. They are being assisted by the London Fire Brigade and the London Ambulance Service.”

Bridge Street, which is at the north end of Westminster Bridge, has been closed to allow the emergency services to deal with the incident, police confirmed.

A spokesman for London Fire Brigade (LFB) said crews from Lambeth, Chelsea, Soho and Islington fire stations have been deployed.

At least nine emergency service vehicles have lined the street in central London as crowds look on from beyond a police cordon.

The protest in Westminster comes as the Palestine Action group said it had sprayed “Gaza is not for sale” on Donald Trump’s Turnberry golf course in Scotland.

Sharing an image of the vandalism on Saturday morning, the group wrote on X: “Whilst Trump attempts to treat Gaza as his own property, he should know his own property is within reach.”

The Turnberry protest comes after the American president claimed the US will “take over the Gaza Strip and we will do a job with it too”.

UK

Five years on from COVID, one survivor reflects on having to fight for his life

Published

21 hours ago

March 8, 2025

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Five years on from COVID, one survivor reflects on having to fight for his life

Mark Hammersley is a survivor. Standing in the Welsh sun, smiling broadly with an outreaching hand to welcome me, he looks the picture of good health.

There is no sign of the trauma. Or the desperate battle for life he fought and won.

I first met Mark as he gasped for air in Warrington Hospital’s intensive care unit. It was October 2020 and the country was in the grip of the second wave of the COVID pandemic.

“The first 24 hours was critical. I was unconscious really in many ways,” Mark reminds me.

He doesn’t need to. The image of Mark wearing a breathing mask attached by a tube to a CPAP machine will stay with me for a very long time.

He had been admitted after becoming poorly while moving house. Mark was 57 then and his underlying health conditions put him at serious risk.

His raspy voice was barely audible over the constant bleeping of the ICU’s life-saving diagnostic machines.

“I’ve got diabetes and I’m overweight so they’re my risk factors. So to be honest for me it’s still early days,” he told me at the time. His underlying health issues meant Mark had to shield for most of the year. And until then it had worked.

Standing next to his bed I asked Mark if he was concerned about his health, about the possible outcome.

“I’m worried yes,” he replied. “But I’m feeling safe if that makes sense.”

Mark tells me now that the doctors treating him were not sure he would make it through the night. They had warned his wife that he was not likely to survive. But instead of inducing Mark into a coma and putting him on life support using a ventilator, the doctors gambled by using a CPAP machine.

The Continuous Positive Airway Pressure unit crucially keeps airways from narrowing or collapsing.

And that decision, Mark is convinced, ultimately saved his life. He is aware that the outcomes for COVID patients put on ventilators were not good.

Five years on and Mark is still feeling the impact of that devastating infection. But he is a relieved man.

“I have been told that I have scarring on my lungs but it’s not affecting their functionality, whether it will later on in life I don’t know,” he says.

“So at the moment it’s still a process but I’m a lot better than I was certainly five years ago and it affects you in different ways. When I was in hospital and afterwards I had a lot of muscular pain so for about 18 months I probably couldn’t even put a shirt on properly.”

In the ICU bed next to Mark’s I also interviewed a young grandmother. She was sat upright and also breathing with the help of a CPAP machine. But she was much more talkative and alert compared to Mark. She was confident her treatment was going well.

But when I returned to the hospital a few weeks later to follow up with both patients I was told she had died shortly after filming.

Mark was aware. He knows that he will live with the long-term health complications from COVID for the rest of his life. But he’s still thankful, every single day for that opportunity.

The UK will mark the five-year anniversary of the start of the COVID pandemic on Sunday.

The deadly virus shut down the world after it spread from Wuhan in China at the start of 2020.

Between March of that year and July 2022, an estimated 180,000 people died after contracting COVID in England and Wales, according to figures published by The King’s Fund thinktank.

The UK government said Sunday’s day of reflection will be an opportunity for the public to remember those who lost their lives, as well as reflect on the impact the virus had on everyday life and pay tribute the frontline workers.

UK

Reform UK MP Rupert Lowe reported to police over alleged threats towards party chairman

Published

1 day ago

March 8, 2025

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Reform UK MP Rupert Lowe reported to police over alleged threats towards party chairman

Reform UK has suspended MP Rupert Lowe and reported him to the police over alleged threats of physical violence towards the party’s chairman.

A statement from chair Zia Yusuf and chief whip Lee Anderson MP also said the party has received complaints from two female employees about alleged serious bullying in Mr Lowe’s offices.

Mr Yusuf and Mr Anderson said “we understand complaints have been made to parliamentary authorities”.

Mr Lowe, 67, has released a statement saying the allegations were “untrue and false”, the accusations of physical threats were “outrageous and entirely untrue”, and he referenced a “vexatious complaint” made by another staff member.

Mr Lowe, the MP for Great Yarmouth, has had the whip suspended, meaning he will sit as an independent MP in the House of Commons.

Mr Yusuf and Mr Anderson said in their statement that Mr Lowe had “on at least two occasions made threats of physical violence against” Mr Yusuf.

The statement said: “It is with regret that we feel obligated to disclose that the party received complaints from two female employees about serious bullying in the offices of the member of parliament for Great Yarmouth, Rupert Lowe.”

Claims of ‘disturbing pattern of behaviour’

It added: “Evidence was provided to us of workplace bullying, the targeting of female staff who raised concerns, and evidence of derogatory and discriminatory remarks made about women, including reference to a perceived disability.

“We feel we have a duty of care to all our staff, whether employed directly or indirectly. Accordingly, we appointed an independent King’s Counsel to conduct an investigation into the veracity of these complaints. To date, Mr Lowe has yet to cooperate with this investigation.

“In addition to these allegations of a disturbing pattern of behaviour, Mr Lowe has on at least two occasions made threats of physical violence against our party chairman. Accordingly, this matter is with the police.

“Reform stands for the highest standards of conduct in public life, and we will apply these standards without fear nor favour, including within our own party.”

Rumblings of leadership challenge

Earlier this week, Mr Lowe appeared to question Nigel Farage’s leadership of Reform UK.

In an interview with the Daily Mail, Mr Lowe said: “Nigel is a fiercely independent individual and is extremely good at what we have done so far. He has got messianic qualities.

“Will those messianic qualities distil into sage leadership?

“I don’t know.”

He added: “I’m not going to be by Nigel’s side at the next election unless we have a proper plan to change the way we govern from top to bottom.”

During Mr Farage’s online falling out with Elon Musk, in which the Tesla businessman said Reform needed a new leader, Mr Lowe drew praise from Mr Musk.

And in the interview with the Daily Mail, Mr Lowe noted that he was “barely six months into being an MP” and “in the betting to be the next prime minister.”

‘Disappointed but not surprised’

In his response to the allegations, Mr Lowe said on Friday the party leadership had a “complete inability to accept even the most mild constructive criticism without such a malicious reaction”.

He said in a statement posted on X: “I am disappointed, but not surprised, to read Reform’s untrue and false allegations. Let me be abundantly clear – this investigation is based on zero credible evidence against me, as has been repeatedly stated by the neutral investigator. None has been provided.

“I have cooperated and spoken at length with the KC they instructed, at great cost to the party, to investigate a minor staff matter.”

He claimed the lawyer was “dismayed” the statement from Reform UK had been published – and that the investigation had not even started.

Mr Lowe claimed the lawyer told him that “no credible evidence has been given”.

The MP added that he was sent an initial letter of complaint last Friday from the party with “no evidence provided”.

“I have never made any derogatory comments about women, or those with disabilities. This is a lie. These allegations are not even referring to me. I will be seeking legal advice immediately,” he added.

Analysis: Could Musk have triggered mess within Reform?

Liz Bates

Political correspondent

@wizbates

It sounds too weird to be true, but Elon Musk may very well be the reason that Reform UK is embroiled in a messy public battle with one of its five MPs.

Detailed and damning statements released on Friday look to be the culmination of months of growing division between Nigel Farage and Great Yarmouth MP Rupert Lowe.

The allegations against him are serious, numerous and have triggered three possible investigations – from the party, the parliamentary authorities and the police.

His rebuttal is equally robust, indicating he will fight hard to clear his name.

But is this battle just about his behaviour? Or is it because of his leadership ambitions? And were they ignited after a bizarre intervention from across the pond?

In January, Musk posted on X, calling for Farage to step down, saying he wasn’t up to the job, and later suggested Lowe could step up as he ‘makes a lot of sense’.

Two months later and relations had broken down beyond repair, with a war of words erupting this week in the papers, in which Lowe called Farage messianic and he responded saying the MP probably wanted to be prime minister.

There is no doubt that an endorsement from the world’s richest man would flatter the ego of any aspiring politician.

But given Friday’s revelations, it seems that instead of kick-starting his rise to the top of Reform, Musk’s meddling has instead severed his ties with the party for good.

When it comes to his parliamentary career, salvaging his reputation could also prove difficult as other critical accounts of his character emerge.

Sky News has heard from Labour MP Mike Kane about an incident which took place in the Commons last December, during which he says he was “manhandled” by the then Reform MP.

The Transport minister described an angry scene in which Lowe had to be restrained by Reform’s deputy leader, Richard Tice, and eventually broken up by the Sergeant at Arms.

Mr Lowe did not wish to comment on the claim, but it adds yet another obstacle in the fight for his political future.

‘Vexatious’ complaint

Mr Lowe continued: “It is no surprise that this vexatious statement has been issued the day after my reasonable and constructive questions of Nigel and the Reform structure. It was issued on X late on a Friday afternoon, with no prior warning.

“All I stated was that communication needs to improve, delegation needs to improve, structure needs to improve – these are all reasonable requests of a party looking to form the next government. I stand by everything I said.”

His response added: “I do not believe that Reform members will be pleased to know that their membership fees are being spent on instructing expensive lawyers to investigate their own MPs, over matters that are entirely baseless and have been dealt with in the correct Parliamentary procedure, with HR’s full involvement and support.

“The staff member in question only raised a vexatious complaint once disciplinary proceedings had been initiated against them for serious wrongdoing. The other individual mentioned, dropped her appeal.”

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Mr Lowe said he had been trying to change the way Reform is run “behind the scenes” for many months, and urged his supporters to “stay with the party”.

He said: “This is our party as much as it is Nigel’s.”

A Metropolitan Police spokesperson said: “On Thursday, 6 March we received an allegation of verbal threats made by a 67-year-old man on Friday, 13 December.

“Officers are carrying out an assessment of the allegations to determine what further action may be required.”