Nicholas Ridley, Baron Ridley of Liddesdale
Nicholas Ridley, Baron Ridley of Liddesdale, PC (17 February 1929 – 4 March 1993), was a British Conservative Party politician and government minister.
The Lord Ridley of Liddesdale
4 March 1993 (aged 64)
Carlisle, Cumbria, England
3 (including Jane)
The 3rd Viscount Ridley (father)
The 4th Viscount Ridley (brother)
Elisabeth Lutyens (aunt)
Mary Lutyens (aunt)
As President of the Selsdon Group, a free-market lobby within the Conservative Party, he was closely aligned with Margaret Thatcher, and became one of her Ministers of State at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office in 1979. Responsible for the Falkland Islands, he tried to resolve the long-running sovereignty issue with Argentina, which detected Britain's reluctance to defend the territory, and later invaded it.
As Secretary of State for Transport, Ridley performed a key function in building up coal stocks in advance of the 1984–85 miners' strike, which helped the government to defeat the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM).
As Secretary of State for the Environment, Ridley opposed a low-cost housing development near his own property, earning him the title of "NIMBY" ("Not in My Back Yard"). He was also responsible for introducing the "poll tax" (formally known as the Community Charge), which was one of the main factors leading to Thatcher's resignation in 1990. He was created a life peer in 1992.
Background and education[edit]
Ridley was the second son of Matthew White Ridley, 3rd Viscount Ridley, and Ursula (née Lutyens), daughter of architect Sir Edwin Lutyens. His elder brother was Matthew White Ridley, 4th Viscount Ridley. He was educated at West Downs School, Winchester, Eton College and Balliol College, Oxford, where he gained a third in mathematical moderations in 1947 and a second-class degree in engineering science in 1951.[1]
A contemporary at Eton was Tam Dalyell, later Labour MP for West Lothian. The two men were not even able to agree on whether or not Dalyell had been Ridley's fag, though Dalyell greatly admired Ridley's skills as an artist, quoting his teacher as saying that Ridley was "more talented than his grandfather" Edwin Lutyens.[2]
Ridley held a national service commission as a lieutenant in the 1st Battalion of The Loyal Regiment in 1947 and was later a Territorial Army captain in the Northumberland Hussars Yeomanry.[3] He later became a civil engineer and company director.
Political career, 1955–1979[edit]
At the 1955 general election, Ridley unsuccessfully contested the safe Labour seat of Blyth.[4] He was elected Member of Parliament (MP) for Cirencester and Tewkesbury at the 1959 election.[4] He was appointed as Parliamentary Private Secretary in 1962, and from 1964 he was a Select committee member before joining the front bench.
Ridley was made a parliamentary secretary in the Ministry of Technology briefly in 1970 before becoming a Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State in the Department of Trade and Industry.[4] He came under pressure after a policy report he had authored in December 1969 on the break-up and privatisation of Upper Clyde Shipbuilders was leaked, where he had proposed that a Conservative government should cut up and "butcher" UCS and sell the government's holdings, "even for a pittance".[5][6]
He left the government in 1972 after refusing the post of Arts Minister.[4] Ridley told Patrick Cosgrave a few days later that "Ted [Heath] thought that because I drew and painted things, I would like to be Minister for the Arts. I had to explain to him that the ministry should not exist, because it involved public expenditure".[4]
In 1973, he co-founded the Selsdon Group, which was opposed to the abandonment of the radical 1970 manifesto by Edward Heath. He closed his keynote speech at the group's launch by citing the "Ten Cannots" of William J. H. Boetcker, adding that they "could well become the guiding principle of the Selsdon Group".[7] The members of the group were seen as disloyal at the time but their ideas came to prominence in the Thatcher years.
Personal life[edit]
Lord Ridley of Liddesdale was married to Clayre Campbell, daughter of Alistair Campbell, 4th Baron Stratheden and Campbell. They divorced in 1974. They had three daughters: social worker Susanna Rickett, designer and writer Jessica Ridley, and historian Jane Ridley, Professor of History at the University of Buckingham. He was a keen water colourist and photographer.
In 1990, asked to comment on the resignation of his cabinet colleague Norman Fowler who had given as the reason for his resignation the wish "to spend more time with my family", Ridley quipped that the last thing he wanted to do was spend more time with his family.[20]
Ridley's puppet on Spitting Image was always portrayed with a cigarette. He died of lung cancer on 4 March 1993.