Britain’s Champion of ‘Popular Capitalism’ : Lawson in New Light After BP Heroics

An expanding economy is one thing, but British Chancellor of the Exchequer Nigel Lawson is enjoying growth in a much more unusual area--his own popularity.

The finance minister has long had a reputation for decisiveness and efficiency. His policies have helped turn the British economy from being one of the weakest into the fastest growing in the world.

But Lawson has been dogged by a poor public image. The popular tabloid press tagged him a “bully boy,” and opposition politicians have depicted him as an uncaring ogre. Even fellow Tory members of Parliament regularly complained of what they said was his arrogant, combative nature and biting wit.

In the past few months, however, Lawson’s political star has been rising.

Greater prosperity for the man in the street was popular at the polls, and the Conservative Party’s economic performance was a major factor in June’s general election victory.

Then came his dramatic intervention last week in the British Petroleum share issue, in which he sided with the small investor against some of the world’s wealthiest financial institutions. The result defused one of the biggest political and economic crises to confront Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and earned Lawson immediate hero status in the party and loud plaudits from most of the press.

Satirized in Cartoons

“Might we get to like Nigel Lawson one day?” asked a columnist in the London Evening Standard newspaper on Monday. “His handling of the BP affair appears admirable. . . . If we accept that he is an honorable, decent man, . . . we might soon have to consider him as future prime ministerial material.”

The chancellor clearly caught the nation’s imagination with his inventive 11th-hour solution to the BP share flotation, placing a floor price under the new BP shares to counter the slump on world stock markets. His action still forced big losses onto several North American investment banks that had agreed to buy and resell the BP shares at pre-Black Monday (Oct. 19) prices.

Lawson’s scraggly hair and plump physique have made him a favorite of cartoon satirists. His well-known dislike of journalists did not help his image with the media.

But in the field of economics and finance, the 55-year-old Lawson has been largely unchallenged since he took charge of the nation’s purse strings four years ago.

Chess Player Style

On Tuesday, Lawson was again on his feet in Parliament in the interests of “popular capitalism”--this time promising that the British economy will remain strong despite a bleak international outlook. He also held out the prospect of fresh tax cuts next year, a move that would further improve his appeal at grass-roots level.

Opposition politicians have accused him of gambling with the economy’s future. They predict that his luck will run out soon.

But those near him say Lawson’s style is like that of a chess player, not a poker player, although he enjoyed both games when a student.

One of his university colleagues who later joined him in Parliament said: “He has the the chess player’s ability to see several moves ahead, and like the best poker player he relishes the game, while at the same time calculating the odds. He also delights in speed and danger.”