Nigel Lawson in 10 of his most memorable quotes
Following the death of former Conservative chancellor Nigel Lawson, we have picked out some of his most memorable quotes.
November, 1981.
“The Conservative Party has never believed that the business of government is the government of business”
As Chancellor in 1984
“I shall resist the temptation to dwell on the golden age of the 1950s and 1960s when I was a financial journalist. But I must say I am struck by the dern obsession with inevitably speculative forecasts of the short-term future, at the expense of informing the reader about what is actually happening in the present”
As Chancellor, 1986
“One of the important things this government has tried to do is to rehabilitate the idea of profit in political discourse. I don’t think the man in the street ever thought that profit was a dirty word, but it had almost become a dirty word among the intelligentsia”
“In the next Parliament we aim to eliminate inflation altogether”
“I would not take too much notice of teenage scribblers in the City who jump up and down in an effort to get press attention” – As Chancellor, responding to economists’ gloomy predictions.
As Chancellor, 1987
“You do not make the poor rich by making the rich poor”
As Chancellor, 1989
“The sharp deterioration has now come to an end”
1989
“Inflation is a disease of money”.
On Neil Kinnock, the then Labour leader.
“He has an infallible knack for getting the wrong end of every stick”
Responding to criticisms of the directorships he accepted immediately after leaving office.
“I think we have been treated to a dose of the sort of sanctimonious humbug which is characteristic of sections of the British press. It is the politics of envy and an awful lot of humbug. Everybody knows that people get paid all different salaries, that newspaper editors don’t do all that badly, but it’s a sort of nauseating form of demagoguery”
In a TV interview, 1992.
“I was a very convenient scapegoat for many people in the party because I had resigned and was expendable”
In a newspaper interview as chairman of the Vote Leave campaign, 2016.
“I love Europe! That’s why I live in France.”
PA