About Nigel Lawson
Nigel Lawson, Baron Lawson of Blaby (11 March 1932 – 3 April 2023) was a British politician, journalist and climate change denier. A member of the Conservative Party, he served as Member of Parliament for Blaby in Leicestershire 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. 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. 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 founded the climate change denial lobby group the Global Warming Policy Foundation and appointed himself chairman, 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. 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. 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. Lawson was educated at Westminster School in London (following in his father's footsteps), and won a mathematics scholarship to Christ Church, Oxford, where he gained a first-class honours degree in philosophy, politics and economics.
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