I mourn the passing of Nigel Lawson. He gave great service and lifted the  UK economy  after the bruising experiences of the 1970 s. He showed that lower tax rates, more competition and nationalised industry reform boosts living standards and opportunities for the many.
In 1983 I was appointed Head of Margaret Thatcherâs Policy Unit. I pressed successfully to merge the Economic Adviser to the PM job in with being Head of the Policy Unit. Alan Walters had departed leaving a vacancy for Economic Adviser. As I advised that the main policy task was making sweeping changes to the UKâs wider economic policy and performance it would be good to unite these roles. It was also necessary in my view to change the way the Economic Adviser role was performed. Alan had allowed or encouraged himself to be part of the public story. He got himself involved in the crucial relationship of PM to Chancellor in a way which made it difficult for the Chancellor. Stories of public splits were not helpful to either principal.
I was positive about Nigelâs appointment as Chancellor. I liked the work he had done as Financial Secretary to the Treasury to establish a new economic policy framework. Control of state borrowing allied to money and credit restraint would provide the best backdrop for low inflation and growth. I thought he would be a tax cutter, as big reductions in personal and business income taxes were essential to end Labourâs brain drain sucking talent and investment out of the country. Privatisation and wider ownership were critical to economic progress. Nigel as Energy Secretary seemed sympathetic to such moves, which would help pay for the programme whilst curbing the deficit.
I explained to a nervous Treasury I would give my views only to the PM. In order to be involved in budget planning I agreed to all those papers being excluded from general Policy Unit consideration. Budget secrecy was taken very seriously then. I was delighted with the big reductions in tax rates, which as I hoped brought in more revenue not less. Margaret and Nigel liked the proposals on privatisation, where I recommended John Moore as a Treasury Minister to drive a government wide programme of reforms, sales and wider ownership. Inflation came down and growth improved.
It then became apparent to me that the Chancellor had changed his mind about his Medium Term Financial strategy and had moved to a personal belief that the UK should join the European Exchange Rate Mechanism instead. I warned the PM in private  why this would be a harmful and destabilising course. She did not want to believe Nigel would do that,  but eventually accepted the evidence. It was such a pity, as their joint enthusiasm for lower taxes, more growth and wider ownership was so successful. The move away from a UK domestic financial discipline to trying to harness to German discipline by proxy spoilt their later partnership in office. Ultimately through John Majorâs insistence on joining it led to another boom bust and the large Conservative defeat of 1997. The period of shadowing the DM as the main policy guide had itself given the UK an inflationary boom, as it led directly to creating more money to try to keep the exchange rate down. Meanwhile the German cornerstone of the ERM was based on a low inflationary Germany using domestic money targets to keep their own prices down.
Nigel Lawson went on to make a further important contribution to modern politics through the Global Warming Foundation. He sought to spell out the economic realities and challenges on the road to net zero to remind us that the policy comes with a price tag that needs to be affordable and fitted into a cogent economic policy framework.
Todayâs Treasury could learn a lot from Nigelâs success with big tax rate reductions, incentives for more self employment and small business and transformational policies to major industries. He will be long remembered for his big contribution to UK economic and industrial policy.
April 5, 2023
Good morning.
A very fine tribute to Lord Lawson.
And so, inadvertently, was laid the foundation stone of what was to become BREXIT and our ‘sort of’ exit from the EU. Ah, the law of unintended consequences. đ
Thank you, ma’ Lord and bless you.
April 5, 2023
The country mourns the loss of the great man
It’s just a pity that the latest cohort of PMs and Chancellors have found it necessary to reverse his good work.
I’m sure if he was in charge there would be no net zero nonesense or the ratio of debt we now have.
RIP.
April 5, 2023
Indeed vast increase in tax both “front door” and “back door” since Lawson left, vast increases in over regulation and nearly every single MP seems to have fallen for the mad net zero con trick. Even Mogg seem to have fallen for it though he questions the speed of the quack “solutions”.
under Lawson Now
The tax increases stamp duty 1% tops up to 15%
IPT 0% 12% or 20%
Income tax 40% 45% & over 100% for some Landlords
VAT 12%? 20%
Far more tax and NI on benefits in kind. Loss of interest relief on Mortgages.
NI far higher now up to about 24% with employer and employee combined.
Loss of personal allowances and child benefit for many, later state pension payments, lower allowances dragging every more into higher taxes, Higher CGT rates with no indexation for inflation for taxed on non real profits. Many other negative changes too. Gordon Brown and Osbornes pensions raid.
April 5, 2023
+1, without the ERM fiasco we would have been sucked into the Euro.
April 5, 2023
+1 yes , never to emerge from the mire. If only our present PM and cabinet members were so intelligent,
April 5, 2023
Very fitting tribute to a brilliant man.
Different times, different people. Our situation now is more difficult than when Nigel Lawson became chancellor, debt to gdp was only in 40’s%, now it’s 95 ish %, Net Trade deficit now worst since 1948, under Thatcher we had positive net trade. Is Mr Hunt up to the job?
April 5, 2023
But why did this usually sensible man fall for the ERM and shadowing the DM?
He was certainly right on the climate alarmist scam yet nearly every MPs even Rees-Mogg has fallen for the “climate emergency” insanity.
April 5, 2023
Difficult to say but, one has to look at the German and Japanese post war economic miracle and the mess we were still in. We still had much of the post WWII scars and our infrastructure was suffering under the ownership of Nationalisation. Part of the reason I suspect why the likes of Macmillan and Heath thought the EEC was a good idea.
April 5, 2023
RIP Lord Lawson my condolences to his family and everyone who knew him.
Are you tone deaf to the green lobby, to the number of ‘green’ party councillors and MPs getting elected and votes? You can’t just turn a blind eye to people terrified by the propaganda that allowed its majority view on our news, magazines, and universities. Standing and shouting ‘they’ve got no clothes on’ does work against the powerful lobbies and people willing to disrupt our motorways, airports, tubes, vandalism to our buildings, smashing windows to be heard. Do you personally get out there and shout them down?
People want to reduce their energy to SAVE MONEY, if that aids the planet then good. Young people I know like to recycle, it makes them feel better about buying so much rubbish in plastic packaging, they own water bottles they ask to refill, carrier bag use has gone down dramatically, this is all good.
The big ticket items like putting solar panels on all government buildings to bring down the costs of the raw products, well that is down to councils and government not the little people.
April 5, 2023
To so many he epitomised what be a politician should be about.
Very much his own man with his principles when it came to new ideas someone who did not just throw his hat into the ring and follow the crowd, without first ensuring he had sorted out in his mind all the pros and cons.
This way of working was really highlighted with the formation of the GWF which has bought to so many the data to introduce that “hang on a moment” when the crowd was kneeling at the alter of the new prefabricated religion to actually stĂČp and question the path being taken.
They sadly broke the mould when they made him.
April 5, 2023
I have to say that I disagree. Britain produces outstanding talent with monotonous regularity. I expect JR will be the last Thatcherite standing as Lord Tebbit is now 92. But the country is awash with SILENCED Thatcherites – or more properly Powellites because Powell was one of the very first âBrexiteersâ.
The big difference between the Thatcher era and the present is that we, the Conservative Associations, had the freedom to choose the candidate we wanted to have to depend on should we personally have a major problem – your own MP is the only one you have the right to contact. I.e. we chose the best representative in Parliament we could. THE BEST – that was the only criteria. Had the majority of the best been women, women would have dominated Parliament. Instead those women in Parliament were a minority but none humiliated half the population. Even Labour women had substance, Barbara Castle for example.
Donât forget that Lawson was held to account by substantial people. Questioning. In those days questions had to be answered not ducked.
We need to lift the bar and return the best people we can find to govern us. At all times they must be aware that they and theirs are subject to the laws they enact.
If that means the benches are filled with pale males in suits that suits me. We are a pale nation and we invented the modern suit, and our men are designed and willing to do all the brutal jobs and fight for us – I speak as a British woman who has been treated as an equal all my life and also protected by all the men of my nation that I have ever encountered.
Donât think that MPs donât fight just because their weapons are invisible. They are our warriors and they are permanently hors de combat.
April 5, 2023
DIdn’t Nigel Lawson also greatly simplify the tax system? How it has become increasingly Byzantine since then. No wonder there is argument about the effects of changes to tax rates. It is too complex now for anyone to be certain of the effects of indivudual changes.
April 5, 2023
Enoch Powell famously said all political careers end in failure and that was certainly true of Nigel Lawson. His six-year spell at the Treasury ended with the economy stricken by a classic British boom-bust cycle, which left unemployment at more than 3 million and a record number of home repossessions that has never been exceeded.
In the late 60s, the UK was a country based around manufacturing, exports of British engineered products, baance of payment surpluses, nationalised industries, full employment and strong trade unions. A measure of Lawsonâs influence is that under his economic stewardship Britain became a country dominated by the financial sector, where large parts of the state were sold off, the unions were broken, the twin deficits became the norm and the gap between rich and poor widened.
April 5, 2023
You forgot the Winter of Discontent. Red Robbo. Going to the IMF with begging bowl in hand. Rampant inflation that would make today’s figures seem quite reasonable. Food and energy shortages due to said strikes. The undermining of private and successful business through forced nationalisation and so on.
And all under a Labour Socialist government.
April 5, 2023
Sakara
You have those rose tinted glasses on again about yesteryear.
Yes indeed you are correct we did manufacture very much more than we do now, but not a lot of it was good quality, remember British Leyland !
Japan and China were no competition back in the 1960’s and 70’s, even Germany was not the power that it is now, so we got away with it for a while.
Equally we invented very many many products to which we sold the rights abroad.
Yes Unions were powerful then, and I hold nothing against Trade Unionism in General, indeed I was a trade union shop steward myself in the early 70’s when involved with engineering and design for the motor Industry, but it became a case of the tail wagging the dog because they were too powerful, management simply could not manage, new processes were delayed or cancelled to such a degree, that industry became inefficient, so industry did not re-invest as it should have.
Then we joined the European Economic Community because politicians thought that was the answer to our problems, the rest is history.
So we are where we are !
April 5, 2023
+100
April 5, 2023
+1
April 5, 2023
Nigel Lawson should be remembered for the good that he did. The ERM was a mis step amid proper conservative values and policies.
R I P Lord Lawson and thank you for a lifetime of contribution.
April 5, 2023
The ERM was a big mistake and not typical of the man. He fell for the group think despite it being an obvious error if you just apply logic. Why would two very different countries want to lock exchange rates?
Alas the good policies he had lower simpler taxes, less regulation and on the climate alarmist exaggerations have all be totally ignored by all government since he left office. Travel in the totally wrong direction on all of these.
Labour to get fly tippers to clean up their rubbish! Great plan Sir Kier what next, shop lifters to replace the stolen goods on the shop shelves, stabbers to sow up the wounds they caused! Another thing that will never happen.
April 5, 2023
I feel sure that had the usually sensible Nigel Lawson been in almost any other job and been asked “is it sensible for two, very different countries like the UK and Germany, with very different economies, policies, housing arrangements, taxes, industries and governments to try lock exchange rates within a narrow range (pushing interest rates up and down to try to keep them there) regardless of the needs of the different economies and changing economic circumstances – then he would have given it a few minutes thought and have said no of course not as any sensible rational person would do.
But he was Chancellor and within the group think environment of the “ERM is good” religion. The group becomes irrational and a one way process few daring to break away from the consensus. You either support Liverpool or you support Arsenal and are out.
Just as we are now in the even more evil group think of May’s moronic net zero and the “climate emergency” religion. Lawson certainly got that right but no one in government is listening.
April 5, 2023
Ah. Back in the day when politicians were respected, had talent and courage.
And subsequent alleged Chancellors have both ignored the lessons from his time and thrown away his legacy.
Instead we get the âI am a low tax PM/chancellorâ rubbish as they do the opposite.
April 5, 2023
“Low tax at heart” as Cameron put it – but ever higher taxes (and dire, declining and piss poor value public services too) in practice.
April 5, 2023
RIP Mr Lawson. A fine Chancellor and gentleman. Impossible to fill his shoes?
April 5, 2023
Indeed. The political pygmies currently in the non-Conservative Government wouldnât be able to fill his shoes between them. Mr. Lawson was not only a fine Chancellor but a true Conservative. Something we are sadly lacking with the current lot. They donât even know the meaning of the word.
April 5, 2023
Mickey, we still have John Redwood. He should have been made chancellor instead of Hunt.
April 5, 2023
there is still time for Sir John should he lead Reform to victory and choose the direction and influence a PM, he’s done it before! Sadly with this lot of pretend Tories he isn’t going to get the job.
April 5, 2023
Redwood would be a better Chancellor than Lawson ever was.
In fact I would give odds that he would prove to be the best First Lord of the Treasury since the war.
I donât agree with all of JRâs opinions, but the imminent defeat of NATO, the end of the USD as the Reserve currency and the end of the petro-dollar will require a very steady hand on the tiller. There is only one on offer!
We need to welcome the death of the Globalist agenda and do well in the new world order compromised of independent, sovereign nations of all types. We need a cool English gentleman who will be recognized worldwide as epitomising our national character and hard won reputation.
When is the sick Tory Parliamentary Party going to read the writing on the wall?
April 6, 2023
I agree, Lynn. My only conundrum is whether he would be more valuable as First Lord of the Treasury or Second.
April 5, 2023
His tax and growth policy was correct.
His rejection of the Climate Change propaganda and the Net Zero lunacy is, and will be proven, correct.
His ERM policy was incorrect and led to the appalling John Major becoming PM. But the silver lining was that it meant we would never join the Euro and would – eventually – leave the EU, so even that has had longer-term beneficial consequences.
He (and the PM he served) were real Conservatives. And they stand head and shoulders above the pathetic bunch of Blu-Green Socialists who have captured the party.
April 5, 2023
Indeed but then Thatcher and Lawson still failed to reduce the size of government by anything like enough, they failed to get real freedoms, fair competition and real choice in education, transport, healthcare… And now we have rigged energy market, banking, refuse & road blocking too. They also buried us further into the EU and the poll tax was politically a big mistake. But clearly way better than Major, Blair, Brown, Cameron, May, Boris, Sunak…
April 5, 2023
Hear hear!
April 5, 2023
I was saddened to hear the news, a Chancellor of vision and courage. Were that we to have such a man in the Treasury today.
April 5, 2023
+ 1
April 5, 2023
When you look at the present crop of politicians, some of these figures from the past seem like giants.
April 5, 2023
Beresford,
By todays standards they were, and they did it with integrity.
April 5, 2023
proper politicians with argued and declared policies unlike the wind blows on a wet finger lot in Westminster currently.
April 5, 2023
See Prof Norman Fenton’s article for the dreadful estimate of number of deaths caused by the covid vaccines. The vaccine programme needs to stop now.
April 5, 2023
Court case recently launched in Pretoria South Africa against Pfizer. Documents released today 737 pages of fact. đ
April 5, 2023
round and round we go again…
April 5, 2023
I’ve always thought that Nigel Lawson was the best Prime Minister we never had.
It was both fortunate and unfortunate that he was at his peak when Margaret Thatcher was so dominant. Had he been around five years earlier or later, he would surely have made a great PM. As it worked out, we were blessed to have two such brilliant and true conservatives in the top offices of state. Looking forward to today, the current generation in power are a feeble imitation of Margaret’s cabinet and there is nobody who remotely comes close to matching the abilities of The great Lady and her Chancellor.
I have little doubt that the new religion of net zero would be seen as heresy, were they still in power.
Sir John Redwood is one of the very few current MPs who remains true to the cause. It is a sad reflection of the priorities followed today, that there is no room in a 21st century cabinet for our host.
Politicians like Thatcher and Lawson come along very rarely. How badly we need a few people of their calibre today.
April 5, 2023
Thatcher failed to secure the line – she should have had JR in the treasury instead of the useless Major. She was too frightened of her political enemies and sacrificed her political friends (because they would not fight back) and therefore her politics.
Amazing to appreciate that the Iron Ladyâs Achilles heel was her weakness, not her strength.
PS Iâm aware that criticism from the sidelines is easy – I admired Mrs Thatcher enormously, she knew Lawson was wrong on the ERM and currency union to which it led. She had the wit to deploy Alan Walters brain against him, because economics was not her speciality.
April 5, 2023
Prince William appoints Jacinda Ardern as a trustee of the Prince of Wales’ prestigious environment award, Kensington Palace has confirmed. “Prince William said it was an honour to welcome the former leader of New Zealand to the Earthshot Prize”,
What a damn fool P. William is. Ardern who forced the vaccine jabs only people for no good reason. She surely should be being investigated for gross criminal negligence? Any he should keep out of politics like his Grandma.
April 5, 2023
Never let it be said that they do not look after their own.
April 5, 2023
+1 along with Charlie the green.
April 5, 2023
Group think in the Ardern Government was a disaster too just as it was is with the ERM, the lockdowns, dangerous vaccines for people who never even needed them, climate alarmism, net zero, the ever larger state and taxes …
April 5, 2023
+1 william also was to destroy all the ivory in the Royal collection. Heâs a vandal.
April 6, 2023
+1
April 5, 2023
” [Nigel Lawson] sought to spell out the economic realities and challenges on the road to net zero to remind us that the policy comes with a price tag that needs to be affordable and fitted into a cogent economic policy framework.”
Indeed, and let’s cut to the chase: (a) it will never be affordable (b) it cannot be fitted into a cogent economic policy framework. Therefore: (a) Net Zero needs to be scrapped (b) given that nothing would stand to be achieved from reducing the benchmark reduction from 100% to 90% or 80%, the Climate Change Act should be repealed.
April 5, 2023
Indeed but about 97% of politicians (nearly all deluded at graduates and virtue-signalers (with perhaps at best some science GCSEs and the odd maths A level) all voted for it!
April 5, 2023
Yes, a great man and a great loss. Right on so many important questions. I wonder, though, whether, besides shadowing the D Mark, foreshadowing the ERM, failing to support and peg the poll tax to the BBC tax and thus landing us with Heseltine’s unfair council tax, the Maastricht Treaty, and finally 13 years of appalling constitutional vandalism and four unjustified wars from New Labour, Lawson is also the Chancellor who first drove wives and mothers out to work, short sighted feminism which resulted in the doubling of house prices and a worse life for women, children, and men.
April 5, 2023
Furthermore, by driving women out to work, did he drive them, and therefore the three parties, further left? Women out to work want a big state doing all the things they used to do themselves. A far cry from the women who ran the Primrose League before they had the vote. Now, it seems, the majority of women vote Labour. When the massed ranks of Conservative back benchers in Lloyd George’s coalition voted for women’s suffrage, despite the Liberals’ distaste for the antics of the Suffragettes, it was with the understanding that women would vote Conservative and balance the Labour votes of men coming back from the war.
April 6, 2023
+ 1
Very interesting points there.
April 5, 2023
To most of us for the most part Nigel Lawson was a Conservative, in a Conservative Government and a true member of the Conservative Party.
Move on a generation the meaning of Conservatism, freedom and a strong resilient economy, is utter lost and is dismissed.
Then when you reflect on policies and beliefs it is not to hard a leap to suggest even Jeremy Corbyn would feel at home in this Government. The Conservative Party has allowed their appointees to cancel the reason they were elected. Become a Conservative MP on a Conservative ticket only to ditch that promiss for left wing Socialist ideals once in office.
April 5, 2023
Good words SirJ
April 5, 2023
I particularly liked his ideas of taxing a percentage of corporation turnover rather than corporation profit with a set threshold to take many SMEs out of taxation
April 5, 2023
âNigel Lawson went on to make a further important contribution to modern politics through the Global Warming Foundation.â
The full title is the Global Warming Policy Foundationâ [GWPF]. It can be a little difficult to find their home page since the UNâs global communications rep told the WEF in 2022 that âWe own the science [of CAGW/Net Zero] and we think the world should know it, and the platforms themselves (Google etc.) also doâ.
The GWPF have some very good annual lectures, available on YouTube, by real scientists.
April 5, 2023
It was good to get the inside story surrounding NIgel Lawson’s appointment as Chancellor . The economy took a massive turn for the better when he was in office – something that was needed badly at the time. The combination of Thatcher and Lawson gave an enormous boost to the lives of the entire community – a setting that saw the end of disruption in the automotive industry and elsewhere . If only we had that sort of leadership now !. Sir John has rightfully paid considerable respect in his blog today .
April 5, 2023
A great man who made his own weather at a time when someone of his stature was really needed. Too bad he was mislead at the time by ERM propaganda. I was interested that in Sunak’s commentary he emphasized Lawson’s caution, patience and preparing the ground before making his big moves on tax. No leap and hope.
April 5, 2023
Kind words Sir.
April 5, 2023
He was a great man, and he and Mrs Thatcher combine to make the present lot seem like pygmys. One can only hope that the publicity given to his death will shine a light on the merits of lower taxation and a sensible tax structure.
I wish I knew more about why he moved to supporting membership of the ERM.
April 5, 2023
RIP Nigel Lawson.
It’s a great pity that since his time in office, no-one has seen fit to emulate his successful formula.
All of the try to enact some variation on the failed experiment that is socialism. We have to ask ourselves how we managed to elect such donkeys for so long.
April 5, 2023
Agree with your comments, Sir John, but still thinking about your comments on growth.
G – get rid of Jeremy Hunt, the most miserable chancellor we have ever had; Growth will never happen under him. He says the tax system is too complicated but did nothing about it in the budget.
R – reform the stupid decision to freeze tax allowances up to 2028, an appalling decision.
O – optimise Brexit freedoms, stop shadowing the EU & cut cooperation tax.
W – work on putting the UK first by getting energy security using our own resources.
T – treat voters like adults & stop forcing policies like net-zero on us; let’s have some honesty about the likely costs & the damage it will do to manufacturing & job losses in the UK, where we will lose real jobs & not have mythical so called “green” jobs!
H – have a proper vision for the UK as a strong sovereign nation, with low cost & secure energy for homes & businesses, a commitment to manufacturing & a proper low tax country.
April 5, 2023
@Keith from Leeds +1
Today the Government annonced it was to save importers from the EU money by creating savings for the at the point of entry. Tax has a purpose, it pays for the UK – give one entity(EU exporters) a tax break and someone else has to pay(UK Business)
April 5, 2023
The BBC used to interview Nigel Lawson every now and again as a climate change sceptic when he was really only putting forward the idea that Net Zero was a chimera and mitigation would be less costly than trying to halt it.
By 2018 the BBC had decided to never interview any climate sceptic, including Nigel Lawson, and as a result has blatantly defied its charter and blown apart any idea that it journalism is impartial.
April 5, 2023
The BBC was just following the instructions of this government and its climate change committee that the âclimate change science is settledâ and therefore doesnât require any further debate
April 5, 2023
Yes, NL was a very great man – and every scintilla, every iota of his legacy has been thrown away by successive leaders and MPs of the Conservative Party, today no more than a statist leftwing organisation whose sole puprose is to perpetuate itself and the personal financial interests of its representatives by means of populist tax-and-spend electoral bribery.
Hayek would not weep, he’d laugh uncontrollably.
April 5, 2023
Home Office â4th April 2023
Illegal Immigrants – 201
Boats â 6
That just leaves 299 places left available on the immigrant barge in Dorset
April 5, 2023
hopefully there are plenty more barges to be moored a mile offshore, in rough seas?.
April 5, 2023
When full we could tow to france
April 5, 2023
The barge is a smokescreen for no action on deportations. Useless media let off the Snake every time. Zero deportations. Home Office planning for over 90000 illegal immigrants this year. That’s a lot of tax and barges for English taxpayers. All spin no action, Consocialists.
April 6, 2023
Correct
April 6, 2023
The most serious failure, Timaction, was to get a returns agreeement with the French, despite continuing with the Danegeld.
April 6, 2023
GC – 299 is no more ! All gone now I’m afraid. 437 / 10 boats crossed yesterday, Weds 5/4. Treading water.
I would welcome, if they do not currently exist, some regularly issued stats available to the public on the total number of rejected applications and deportations. Weekly stats may be too much to ask but maybe monthly.
April 5, 2023
Nigel Lawson was one of the very few Ministers in my lifetime who both really understood his Department and had the determination to make fundamental changes, qualities that are essential to being a good Minister which he very much was.
Perhaps Nigel Lawson’s greatest lasting achievement was that he reduced the top rate of Income Tax from 60p to 40p in the ÂŁ in one go which was astounding at the time but lasted for over 20 years and even now no mainstream politician (even among the Left) is advocating going back to Income Tax at 60p or more in the ÂŁ. In that he boldly changed the conventional political outlook and consensus very much for the better.