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Has Maude shut the door in Boris’s face?
Nigel Lawson and Francis Maude are both interviewed in the Telegraph today, and the results are very different in each case. For his part, Lawson is in bombastic form – waxing sceptical on everything...
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Lawson: don’t do it George
Lord Lawson has given George Osborne’s Budget an A-minus. Writing in today’s Times (£), the former chancellor said that his successor ‘got the big questions right’ by sticking to deficit reduction and...
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When it comes to global warming, rational debate is what we need
We had a sell-out debate on global warming at The Spectator on Tuesday and, as I found out this morning, the debate is still going on. The teams were led by Nigel Lawson and Sir David King, and I was...
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From the archives: Nigel Lawson on the Euro
13 years ago, The Spectator carried an interview with Nigel Lawson in which he gave his views on the EU’s Economic and Monetary Union – views that seem especially prophetic today.‘It’s going to be...
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Nigel Lawson versus Mervyn King
In this week’s Spectator we have a piece from one of our former editors, Nigel Lawson, where he confronts this idea that the West’s woes can be blamed on a new bogeyman called ‘global imbalances’....
View ArticleAn open letter to Chris Huhne
Earlier this year, the former head of the civil service, Lord Turnbull, wrote a pamphlet on climate change entitled The Really Inconvenient Truth or “It Ain’t Necessarily So”. It was praised by Nigel...
View ArticleLawson: Abolish DECC
Did we need to replace Chris Huhne at all? Nigel Lawson, a former editor of The Spectator (amongst other things), has an intriguing idea in a letter to today’s FT: just break up the Department for...
View ArticleLawson: I would not have U-turned
I’m presenting Radio Four’s Week in Westminster tomorrow at 11am and discuss George Osborne’s U-turn with former chancellors Alistair Darling and Nigel Lawson (the latter pictured above when editor of...
View ArticleOsborne’s grim morning
‘Unfortunately, it’s not enough.’ That is, broadly, the conclusion of John Longworth, the director of the British Chamber of Commerce, who has penned a visceral critique of the government’s economic...
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How do you get more tax from the rich? Cut their tax rates. Lessons from...
I’ve just returned from a dinner given by the TaxPayers’ Alliance for Nigel Lawson to celebrate the silver anniversary his 1988 Budget, a great event with an all-star cast. Two of George Osborne’s...
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The View from 22 — Leaving Afghanistan and Fraser Nelson vs. John Rentoul
Is the British Army enjoying a straightforward and safe withdrawal from Afghanistan? No, according to this week’s Spectator. The Daily Telegraph’s Con Coughlin writes the withdrawal is one of the most...
View ArticleAfter leaving office, Margaret Thatcher believed Britain should leave the EU
On Tuesday night, at a Spectator readers’ evening, Andrew Neil interviewed me about my biography of Margaret Thatcher. He asked me if, after leaving office, Lady Thatcher had come to the view that...
View ArticleThe euro-elite responds to Nigel Lawson’s ‘dinosaur argument’
I’ve just come from a briefing with a European Union official. He was asked whether Lord Lawson’s call for Britain to leave the EU was a ‘dinosaur argument.’ In response, the official paused. He...
View ArticleDan Hannan’s spot on, again
Very good piece from Dan Hannan in yesterday’s The Daily Telegraph. The gist of it being that politicians admit to Eurosceptical tendencies only once they have left office (and therefore, by...
View ArticleNigel Lawson: did I kill Hugh Gaitskell?
I recently did a lunchtime meeting for the Institute of Economic Affairs. They had invited me to make the case for ‘Brexit’ — the departure of Britain from the European Union — which I now believe to...
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Why Britain can’t use foreign aid money to help Somerset
Should Britain’s foreign aid budget be raided to help homes hit by the flood? There are plenty calls for this today, making the splash of the Daily Mail (below). A local MP, Ian Liddell-Grainger,...
View ArticleDavid Cameron hints at tax cuts for Middle England
The Telegraph’s Christopher Hope tweets the news that David Cameron is open to raising the threshold for the 40p rate: NEWS! PM: “I would love to raise the 40p tax threshold, I understand the problem,...
View ArticleGeorge Osborne’s fact-finders come up trumps in the Autumn Statement
Osborne got his chance to audition for Number 10 today. He hasn’t the fluency and the synthetic chumminess of Cameron. And his emotional range is far narrower than the PM’s. He’s like Nigel Lawson,...
View ArticleNigel Lawson criticises the Tories’ election campaign
Given that Nigel Lawson served as chancellor of the exchequer in Margaret Thatcher’s cabinet, Mr S suspects that the Conservatives will have hoped that they could rely on Lawson for a vote of...
View ArticleNigel Lawson: Cameron will hold Tory party together over EU
Renegotiating substantial change in Britain’s EU relationship is a problem for David Cameron. On the one hand, the Eurozone is facing an unknown challenge with a Grexit on the horizon. But many in the...
View ArticleGeorge Osborne puts Labour ‘on the spot’ with law to enshrine budget surpluses
George Osborne is making his first big move as Chancellor in this Parliament. In his Mansion House speech tonight, he will announce a ‘new settlement’ for the economy: a permanent commitment to...
View ArticleWhat Nigel Lawson’s new role at Conservatives for Britain means for Eurosceptics
Eurosceptic Tories have a new voice to herald their cause: Nigel Lawson. The former Chancellor and Spectator editor announced in an op-ed he is becoming the president of Conservatives for Britain, a...
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