ABSTRACT
As in the case of the Foreign Secretary, if the Chancellor does not see eye to eye with the Prime Minister life will be difficult and the Chancellor may have to go. Selwyn Lloyd’s biographer has chronicled in detail the unhappy process by which, as Chancellor, he lost Macmillan’s confidence and was eventually dismissed (Thorpe 1989). Relations between Nigel Lawson and Mrs Thatcher were bound to end in tears, for he was able, opinionated and not inclined by temperament to kow-tow to her increasingly inflexible views; since friction set in at an early stage, it is amazing in retrospect that they worked together for 6 years (Lawson 1992). The last few years crackled with tension, and Lawson declared in his resignation letter ‘The successful conduct of economic policy is possible only when there is, and is seen to be, full agreement between the Prime Minister and the Chancellor of the Exchequer’, in the absence of which he could not continue (national newspapers 27 October 1989). The relationship between Major and his Chancellor Lamont seems to have gone sour from an early stage, with Lamont reluctant to cut interest rates as fast as the Prime Minister wanted, failing to discuss his budget with him and reluctant to take action to lance the boil of the poll tax. After the debacle of sterling’s ejection from the Exchange Rate Mechanism, Major refused Lamont’s resignation, then sacked him after a further 8 months of deteriorating relations. Although politically maladroit, Lamont clearly felt that Major had used him as a shield (Seldon 1997).
