Thatcher’s ‘revolutionary’

Lawson calls time after 50 years

Lord Lawson of Blaby, the former tax-cutting chancellor who was called a “revolutionary” by Margaret Thatcher, has retired from the House of Lords, ending a parliamentary career stretching back nearly five decades.

The peer, 90, was one of a handful of Conservative politicians to have worked closely with Mrs Thatcher in the 1980s, serving as her chancellor from 1983 to 1989.

Lord Lawson, 90, made his name at the Treasury, slashing the basic rate of income tax from 30 per cent in 1983 to 25 per cent by 1988. That same year he cut the top rate from 60 per cent to 40 per cent.

The news comes months after Lord Tebbitt, another Thatcherite Cabinet minister, quit the Lords. Christopher Hope