Lawson, Nigel Lawson, Baron 1932-
English Conservative politician

Educated at Westminster and Christ Church, Oxford, he embarked on a career as a journalist after Royal Navy national service (1954-56). From The Financial Times he moved to the Sunday Telegraph, where he was city editor, and then gradually entered politics, unsuccessfully fighting the Slough seat for the Conservatives in 1970 and then becoming MP for Blaby, Leicestershire, in 1974. Margaret Thatcher appointed him Financial Secretary to the Treasury in 1979, from where he rose to Energy Secretary (1981-83) and Chancellor of the Exchequer in 1983, from which post he dramatically resigned in 1989, being replaced by John Major. Though at first one of Margaret Thatcher's closest Cabinet colleagues, by the late 1980s they had become increasingly estranged over Lawson's advocacy of lower interest rates to cure industrial stagnation and of Great Britain's full membership of the European monetary system. His sudden resignation marked the beginning of a party split that widened during the following year and saw Thatcher dropped as party leader in November 1990. He resigned from the Commons in 1992 and was awarded a life peerage the same year. Following his dramatic weight loss, he published The Nigel Lawson Diet Book in 1996. His other publications include The Coming Confrontation (1978), The Power Game (1979) and The New Conservatism (1980).