Nigel Lawson
Nigel Lawson, Baron Lawson of Blaby, PC (11 March 1932 – 3 April 2023) was a British politician and journalist. A member of the Conservative Party, he served as Member of Parliament for Blaby from 1974 to 1992, and served in Margaret Thatcher's Cabinet from 1981 to 1989. Prior to entering the Cabinet, he served as the Financial Secretary to the Treasury from May 1979 until his promotion to Secretary of State for Energy. He was appointed Chancellor of the Exchequer in June 1983 and served until his resignation in October 1989. In both Cabinet posts, Lawson was a key proponent of Thatcher's policies of privatisation of several key industries.[1]
The Lord Lawson of Blaby
Margaret Thatcher
Margaret Thatcher
Constituency created
3 April 2023 (aged 91)
Eastbourne, England
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Vanessa Salmon(m. 1955; div. 1980)
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Thérèse Maclear(m. 1980; div. 2012)
United Kingdom
1954–1956
Lawson was a backbencher from 1989 until he retired in 1992 and sat in the House of Lords from 1992 to his further retirement in 2022.[2] He remained active in politics as the president of Conservatives for Britain, a campaign for Britain to leave the European Union, and was a prominent critic of the EU. He also served as the chairman of the think tank The Global Warming Policy Foundation and was an active supporter of Vote Leave.
Lawson was the father of six children, including Nigella Lawson, a food writer and celebrity cook, Dominic Lawson, a journalist, and Tom Lawson, headmaster of Eastbourne College.
Early life and education[edit]
Nigel Lawson was born on 11 March 1932 to a non-Orthodox Jewish family[3] living in Hampstead, London.[4] His father, Ralph Lawson (1904–1982), was the owner of a tea-trading firm in the City of London, while his mother, Joan Elizabeth (Davis) (died 1998), was also from a prosperous family of stockbrokers.[5] His paternal grandfather, Gustav Leibson, a merchant from Mitau (now Jelgava in Latvia), changed his name from Leibson to Lawson in 1925,[6] having become a British citizen in 1911.[7]
Lawson was a great-nephew of the pianist Myra Hess.[1]
Lawson was educated at Westminster School in London (following in his father's footsteps),[8] and won a mathematics scholarship to Christ Church, Oxford,[1][9] where he gained a first-class honours degree in philosophy, politics and economics.[10]
In the media[edit]
Lawson was interviewed about the rise of Thatcherism for the 2006 BBC TV documentary series Tory! Tory! Tory!.[73]
In 2010, he appeared on the Analysis programme[74] to discuss banking reform. Lawson said that an unintended consequence of the 1986 Big Bang saw investment banks merge with high street banks and put their depositors' savings at risk.[74]
In 2019, he appeared on the BBC documentary series Thatcher: A Very British Revolution,[75] and discussed Thatcher's rise and fall.
In a debate with other former cabinet ministers and prominent journalists, Lawson argued that political life is more in need of ideas and direction than grand political visions.[76]
