Climate denier Nigel Lawson (Picture: Chatham House/Flickr)
The Tory architect of privatisation and neoliberalism, Nigel Lawson, is dead.
As energy secretary and then chancellor under Margaret Thatcher’s government, Lawson pushed to deregulate financial markets, break trade unions and make it easier to carve up and sell off public services.
He was one of those who planned meticulously how to defeat the miners. In a disgusting slur, he later recalled that Tory preparations for the miners’ strike were, “just like re‑arming to face the threat of Hitler in the late 1930s”.
His partnership with Thatcher was an alliance to advance class war. He ushered in vicious levels of misery, deprivation and suffering for working class people that are still felt today.
As chancellor he boasted that every time he set out a budget, he made tax cuts—always helping the rich and the corporations.
As he got older, he turned his attention to climate denial. He described human-made climate change as “clap trap” and became chair of the Global Warming Policy Foundation—a think tank promoting climate denial.
Unfortunately, Lawson’s legacy had not died with him. Rishi Sunak hung a picture of him above his desk when he became chancellor. And much of it is accepted by Keir Starmer.
Getting revenge for the decades of suffering caused by neoliberalism that Lawson helped to engineer will mean kicking out those who hope to continue his rotten ideology.
There are more union banners on protests
