POLITICS
An Interview with Lord Lawson An Interview with The Rt Hon Lord Lawson of Blaby PC In October 1989 Nigel Lawson resigned as Chancellor of the Exchequer after six years in the role, an earthquake in the landscape of British politics. Then Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher was outwardly calm; however, her personal papers, released in 2019, showed she was anything but. “She would have loved to have really punched hard, I think,” Chris Collins, a historian at the Margaret Thatcher Foundation, told the Guardian newspaper at the time. Lord Lawson of Blaby was elected to Parliament in 1974 and served as a cabinet minister under Margaret Thatcher from 1981 to 1989. Among other things, he oversaw the deregulation of financial markets in 1986, known as the Big Bang. Prior to the half-term break, three Eastbourne students – James Grout, Elizabeth Harvey and Sasha Rozanov, along with Dr Flanagan had the privilege of interviewing Lord Lawson, now 89, at his home in Eastbourne about his experiences in government and views on some current events. And, yes, in case you’re wondering, Lord Lawson is indeed the father of another Lawson, who fortunately gets to run the show at Eastbourne unopposed and so will hopefully remain for many years to come. What follows are lightly edited excerpts from that interview. Lord Lawson’s complete account of his time as Chancellor can be found in his autobiography, Memoirs of a Tory Radical (Biteback Publishing, 2010). Question: Can you talk to us about the day that [Michael] Heseltine resigned and how did that alter the mood in cabinet and Thatcher’s authority? Lord Lawson: We were in a Cabinet meeting when
he resigned. It was a bit of a shock because he walked out very dramatically. But it was something that we were able to survive although, it was clear that he was extremely ambitious and thought that he ought to be the prime minister, and he was always there in the wings, as it were, following his resignation. In terms of the Tory party, we were at rather different ends of the spectrum but we always got on very well personally. Q: When you resigned from cabinet, how much impact do you think it had, not only on Thatcher but on her downfall? Lord Lawson: Well, I didn’t resign without great thought, and it was certainly not intended to dam-
We were at rather different ends of the spectrum but we always got on very well personally age her. But, I think it was damaging for her. Q: Could you tell us a bit more about that, in what ways do you think your resignation most effect Thatcher’s government? Lord Lawson: Well I think that as time went on during her very long prime ministership she deteriorated, and her judgement deteriorated gradually, it was a very gradual process, and she became more and more intolerant of opposition. I have always been somebody who speaks their mind; there were many others in the cabinet who were critical of her but didn’t speak their mind. So I do think probably that my resignation -- and it’s not often that a Chancellor resigns, most ministers who leave are sacked -- did sort of consolidate a feeling that had been growing on the Tory benches. She was not, perhaps, as popular amongst her colleagues as she had been, but there was one particular thing that caused her downfall, which I tried to protect her from.
