For two years from 1954, Lawson carried out his
National Service as a
Royal Navy officer, during which time he commanded the fast-patrol boat
HMS Gay Charger. Having been turned down for a career at the
Foreign Office, Lawson joined the
Financial Times as a journalist in 1956, subsequently writing the
Lex column. He progressed to become
City editor of
The Sunday Telegraph in 1961, where he introduced
Jim Slater's
Capitalist investing column. In 1977, while an
opposition whip, Lawson co-ordinated tactics with rebellious 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). Although this is the fourth-ranking political position in the
UK 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 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
Labour Party government of
Clement Attlee) over the closure of deep coal mines whose uneconomic operation accounted for the coal industry's business losses and consequent requirement for
state subsidy. He 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 privatisations of the gas and electricity industries and on his return to the Treasury he worked closely with the
Department of Trade and Industry in privatising
British Airways,
British Telecom, and
British Gas.
Chancellor of the Exchequer Following the Thatcher government's
re-election in 1983, Lawson was appointed
Chancellor of the Exchequer, succeeding
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 per cent rate to which it had been lowered in 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). Lawson also changed the
budget deficit from £10.5 billion (3.7 per cent of GDP) in 1983 to a
budget surplus of £3.9 billion in 1988 and £4.1 billion in 1989, the year of his resignation. During these years, however, the UK's
current account deficit similarly rose from below 1 per cent of GDP in 1986 to almost 5 per cent in 1989, with Lawson asserting that an external deficit based on
private-sector behaviour is no reason for concern. During his tenure, the rate of
taxation also came down. The basic rate was reduced from 30 per cent in 1983 to 25 per cent by 1988. The top rate of tax also came down from 60 per cent to 40 per cent in 1988, and the four other higher rates were removed, leaving a system of personal taxation in which there was no rate anywhere in excess of 40 per cent. In 1986 the City of London's
financial markets were
deregulated in the so-called "
Big Bang". In an interview in 2010, Lawson said that an
unintended consequence of the Big Bang and the associated end of the separation that had existed between
merchant and
retail banking was the
2008 financial crisis. 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
Edward Heath (1970–1974). Critics of Lawson assert that a combination of the abandonment of
monetarism, the adoption of a
de facto exchange-rate target of 3
Deutsche Marks to the
pound, and excessive fiscal laxity (in particular the
1988 budget) unleashed an
inflationary spiral. In his defence, Lawson attributed the boom largely to the effects of various measures of
financial deregulation. Lawson's tax cuts, beginning in 1986, resulted in the "Lawson Boom" of the British economy, which halved unemployment from more than 3,000,000 by the end of 1989. However, this may have led to a rise in inflation from 3 per cent to more than 8 per cent during 1988, which resulted in interest rates doubling to 15 per cent in the space of 18 months, and remaining high despite the
1990–1992 recession which saw unemployment rise nearly as high as the level seen before the boom began. Lawson reflected on the
1987 general election in his memoir and wrote that the 1987 manifesto was not thought through properly and if it had not been for the economic growth of the country at the time, then the manifesto would have been a disaster because "as it was, it was merely an embarrassment". The March 1988 budget was remembered for taking almost two hours to deliver due to continuous interruptions and protest from opposition members.
Scottish National Party MP
Alex Salmond was
suspended from the House, and several MPs voted against the amendment of the law bill (which is typically agreed by all members of the House). Lawson opposed the introduction of the
Community Charge (nicknamed "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 department responsible (
Department of the Environment).
Resignation After a further year in office in these circumstances, Lawson felt that public criticism from Walters (who favoured a
floating exchange rate) was making his job impossible and he resigned. He was succeeded in the office of chancellor by
John Major. Lawson's six-year tenure as Chancellor of the Exchequer was longer than that of any of his predecessors since
David Lloyd George, who served from 1908 to 1915. Both men's records were subsequently beaten by Labour's
Gordon Brown, who was chancellor from 1997 to 2007.
Retirement After retiring from
front-bench politics, Lawson decided to tackle his
weight problem. He was 5 feet 9 inches (175 cm) tall; he lost five stone (70 pounds, 30 kg) from 17 stone, or 238 pounds (108 kg) to 12 stone, or 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 . On 1 July 1992 Lawson was given a
life peerage as Baron Lawson of Blaby, of
Newnham in the
County of Northamptonshire. In 1996 Lawson appeared on the
BBC satirical and topical quiz show
Have I Got News for You, in which he secured his team a last-minute victory. He occasionally appeared as a guest on his daughter
Nigella's
cookery shows. Lawson served on the
advisory board of the Conservative magazine
Standpoint. In 2013, Lawson advocated
Britain leaving the European Union. He argued that "economic gains [from leaving the EU] would substantially outweigh the costs". In the
2016 EU referendum, he supported Leave and was appointed chairman of the
Vote Leave campaign.
Corporate roles • 2007: Chairman of Central Europe Trust Company Ltd (CET) • 2007: Chairman of Oxford Investment Partners
Climate change Lawson was involved with the
climate change denial movement and believed that the impact of
man-made global warming had been exaggerated. He was a highly active climate change denier and used what influence he had as a former cabinet minister and member of the lords to try to give his views greater traction. In 2004, along with six others, Lawson wrote a letter to
The Times opposing the
Kyoto Protocol and claiming that there were substantial scientific uncertainties surrounding
climate change. 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 recommended the
HM Treasury take a more active role in
climate policy, questioned the objectivity of the
IPCC process, and suggested changes in the UK's contribution to future international climate change negotiations. The report cited a mismatch between the economic costs and benefits of climate policy and also criticised 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". 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". At about the same time as the release of the House of Lords report, the UK Government launched the
Stern Review, an inquiry undertaken by the HM Treasury and headed by
Lord Stern of Brentford. 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 (CPS)
think tank, published 1 November 2006, opposed the Stern Review and advocated adaptation to changes in global climate rather than reducing
greenhouse gas emissions. In 2008, Lawson published a book expanding on his 2006 lecture to the CPS,
An Appeal to Reason: A Cool Look at Global Warming. He argued the case that, although global warming is happening, the impact of these changes will be relatively moderate rather than apocalyptic. He criticised those "
alarmist" politicians and scientists who predict catastrophe unless
urgent action is taken. In July 2008, the Conservative magazine
Standpoint published a transcript of a double interview with Lawson and Conservative 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 Conservative frontbench to "get real". On 23 November 2009, Lawson founded and then became chairman of a new think tank,
The Global Warming Policy Foundation (GWPF), that is registered as an education charity. Ward also criticised Lawson for repeating in a 2010 BBC radio debate that
Antarctic ice volumes were unchanged even after his error was highlighted by his opponent, Professor
Kevin Anderson. In a
BBC Radio interview in August 2017, Lawson claimed that "official figures" showed "average world temperature has slightly declined" over the preceding decade and that experts in the IPCC found no increase in
extreme weather events. In a follow-up programme on the BBC's presentation of these claims,
Peter A. Stott of the
Met Office said Lawson was wrong on both points.
Economy Lawson was a critic of
David Cameron's
coalition government economic policy, describing spending cuts consultation plans as a "PR ploy". In November 2011, he called for the "orderly" dismantling of the
eurozone. == In the media ==