Nigel Lawson, the former Conservative Chancellor of the Exchequer, died on 3 April, at the age of 91.
Before entering politics, Lawson was a successful financial journalist and continued publishing regular articles in The Telegraph and The Spectator until as recently as November last year.
He became one of the “big beasts” of prime minister Margaret Thatcher’s cabinets, as well as serving as MP for the Blaby constituency from 1974 to 1992.
Thatcher put him in charge of the Treasury in 1983, where he cut income tax, boosted share ownership and paid off government debt.
As chancellor, he modernised London’s financial markets, overseeing the deregulation of stock exchange membership and embracing electronic trading, which helped to establish London as a major global financial centre.
The resulting economic growth was eventually named the Lawson Boom.
His stewardship of the economy was credited with helping Thatcher win a third term.
However, lower taxes and cheaper borrowing fuelled an unsustainable boom. Interest rates rose sharply, and Britain went into recession.
Thatcher called Lawson ‘unassailable’, but he resigned in 1989 after falling out with her over Europe.
He resigned as an MP at the 1992 election before entering the House of Lords as Lord Lawson of Blaby, only retiring last December.
Lawson used his platform in the Lords to express scepticism about man-made climate change.
In 2016 he became the chairman of Vote Leave, the group which led the campaign for the UK’s exit from the EU. He described Brexit as a ‘historic opportunity’ to finish the job Thatcher had started.
Lawson backed Rishi Sunak over Liz Truss in last year’s Conservative leadership contest. He said Truss’s tax-cutting plans were not in the Thatcherite tradition and would risk going back to the mistakes of the 1970s.