The former chancellor leaves two legacies: Britain’s economy is still largely the one he transformed in the 1980s, and the modern Conservative Party is full of pretenders to his intellectual mantle
, transfixed by arguments over Europe and a rising tax burden, is full of pretenders to his intellectual mantle.
He was an enthusiast for the privatisation of nationalised industries, a process he launched as financial secretary to the Treasury and energy secretary before he became chancellor. After the sale of shares in British Telecom in 1984, he lauded “the birth of people’s capitalism”. Arguments about Europe have consumed the party ever since. Lord Lawson remained part of them right up until his death. In 2016 he briefly became chair of the Vote Leave campaign, which successfully advocated Britain’s departure from the. Though he was curious about ideas and his budget speeches were often long and dry, filled with technical details about monetarism, he believed that thewas a simple combination: free-market thinking, nationalism, self-reliance and “a dash of populism”.
All sides of today’s Conservative Party still lay claim to his inheritance. Rishi Sunak, the prime minister, called Lord Lawson an “inspiration” after his death. Yet the exact shape of this legacy is contested. In a lecture in 2022 when he was chancellor, Mr Sunak said that many Conservatives gave only a partial account of Lord Lawson’s time in office: their idol had waited to cut taxes until he had balanced the budget.
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